. Just put this in because I liked it.
Jim, George, I, Dave and Jeremy try out a bottle of The
Glenrothes vintage 1991. This weekend is the memorial reunion of the Scottish Rite with the new class named in George's honor. This morning, I read my friend Jay's blog and he discussed the TV show about Dan Browns new book. He also asked the question, " Who would you most like to have dinner with from the past?" He picked Albert Pike and another picked Thomas Jefferson. Good choices. But, I would pick two guys, my Grandfather and George.
A childhood and lifelong friend of mine passed away a couple years ago. This morning was his fathers funeral. He caught a cold last week and in a couple days time was gone. I was reminded that I am the only one in my graduating class with both parents . I am blessed.
On to happy thoughts. I don't remember, if I wrote in this blog about my first night on my solo Boundary Waters trip. The first night, I woke up to what I thought at first was a bear trying to get my food. It was a low grunting sound. I
imagined the bear standing on his back legs swinging at my food bags like a tether ball unable to get a grip on the bag. If you go back to my last blog, you will see two small yellow bags hanging to the left of my tent. I of course couldn't go back to sleep thinking there may be a bear ten feet from my tent. So, I put on my headlight and grabbed my pistol. Slowly, I unzipped the tent door and then stood out side the tent being very quiet. I had my hand over my light waiting for some noise. Then I heard it! The noise came from back of my tent up the hill on the way to the
latrine. I hit the area with my light and to my surprise, I saw the west end of a soon to be headed east, moose. All I saw was the back end for a couple seconds and then the sound of a moose running
thru the woods. It of course sounds like every tree and bush is being downed as the moose passes
thu the woods. That was a relief! So, I was able to go back to sleep and all was well. A side note. I mentioned that, I took out my pistol. I would never be so stupid to shot a bear or moose to make it go away. I would, however, empty a clip in a heartbeat into anything that attacked me. So, the moose story was sort of forgotten until I see some pictures on another website taken by a guy that camped at the same site that I had, only five days later. He got a picture of the moose!! To see the pictures go to one of my favorite web pages at
www.sawbill.com and then click on the
Sawbill News. You will have to scroll down
thru pictures of Halloween cookies and Jack-o-lanterns to get there. The guy that took the pictures is a professional wildlife
photographer and a very good one. There is a link to his store site in the article. Best be going. Doug, Over and Out.
These are out of order. Been so long since I've done this that I forgot that the pictures load backwards. This is take out after our kayak trip on Sunday Nov 8. We took out at Pine Lake State Park.
more bluffs along the east bank of the river. The glaciers made for some interesting rock, land and soil formations in this area of the state. About 4 miles west of this area is where the prairie starts.
More bluffs. Most people don't know these are here as they are covered by the trees and greenery during the summer when most people go down the river.
For some reason, all our trips end up involving Masons. Here is Dave (our Worshipful Master elect), Me ( an old Past Master) and nonage Bobbie(Past Master Counselor of Nebraska). He is from Council Bluffs/Omaha. He came up for the summer to work on the farm with my brother (his uncle) and decided to stay for his senior year in Eldora. I think he made friends, found a girl friend and wants to play on the E-NP basketball team. I ask him what he wanted for his 18th birthday. He told me that he figured that he would get three petitions, one from Dad, one from Mom and one from Grandma! It would be nice, if he could have time to come on our spring BWCAW trip.
You can see that the river was a couple feet high. It made for a fast trip, but you take what you can get in Nov and Dec. We have canoed/kayaked in every month of the year on the Iowa River. It just doesn't happen every month in the same year. Late Falls, January thaws and early Springs have to work in our favor. I just see that the weatherman has issued winter storm advisory for western Iowa. It looks like we are only getting rain. Still too warm for any snow. Doug, Over and Out.
