Life

3/30/2018 Friday According to Mapquest, it’s possible to get from Orange City to Crystal River in about two hours.  Thus far, though, it’d taken much longer to get anywhere in Florida, and the more I’d been in a hurry, the more frustrating the traffic.  To outsmart the traffic gods, I announce I’m in no hurry […]

3/28/2018 Wednesday, somewhere near Ocala When Bob Stonewater isn’t being a fishing guide for boneheads from Michigan, he sometimes participates in billiards tournaments.  This evening being a tournament in Orlando, Bob chose a more local venue for fishing on lake called Lake Diaz. We meet him at the 7-11 and drove about 15 minutes to

We start our morning at the Quality Inn lobby where we find cereal and milk, tiny pastries, a waffle maker, and eggs which have been cooked and flattened into a round shape to put on an English muffin with a sausage of the same shape.  I go for the cereal, grab a piece of fruit

We spend our first day in Florida getting acclimated to sunshine and warm air by touring three nearby springs.  After a simple hotel breakfast of conveniently round eggs and round sausage on round muffins, we head to our truck and see this bird.  It’s a mockingbird, and while known to sing up to 14 songs,

The thing about living in Michigan is that winters are long and it’s hard to fish our rivers and lakes several months of the year unless you like ice fishing.  I’ve never gotten into ice fishing:  I prefer certain alcoholic beverages on ice, as well as Coke.  But standing on ice and waiting for a

We are up at five and finish packing, which consists of putting all sorts of damp clothes into a large duffle bag, all of which are starting to smell like wet athletic socks that have been storedin a locker for a month.  Along with odiferous clothes are a bunch of unused, unopened lures Mark thought we’d

Friday: 2/5/2016 On the fifth day of fishing in the Amazon I awake in the middle of the night wondering what I’m doing here, because the pain in my right hand is constant, and when I stand up at what is about 4 a.m.—though I’m not sure because my watch is on the counter because my

Thursday, 2/4/2016  I wake up at 4 a.m. with a crampy pain in my left hand and it takes an aspirin to help me get back to sleep again.  It’s an interesting pain–puffiness mixed with tingliness in my hand, and when I place my arm just so on my bed I experience a ray of

Wednesday: 2/3/2016 I awake with puffed up hands in the early morning, unable to make a fist.  It’s the same problem I had two years ago in the Amazon and I’m betting an aspirin–or several–will make it better.  After showering, I head with Mark to the breakfast cabin.  There, Bobby shows me the note I’d

Tuesday: 2/2/2016 Third Full Day’s Fishing I start the morning with a couple of aspirin because my left hand is all puffy.  I also wrap the fingers on my left hand with some very cute duct tape because I have a few blisters.  I’m feeling more like a wuss every day. It rains on and