To Do, or Not To Do?

Yea, I do. I'm not like some people I know that wake up, go to work, come home, watch NASCAR, drink eight beers, then go to bed. I watch baseball...

What I'm saying is that I try to keep moving. I try to get out when I can. Take some trips, see some shit, eat some food. I do not like monotony.

So with that said...sure, I've done a few things since my last entry. A trip back home, done some fishing, eaten some good food, did a little camping. But "The Art of Doing" is a fairly bold title. It has a larger feel than just getting out of your house. When I read the title, "The Art of Doing", I expect to read about elaborate travels of an interesting, bearded man who cannot be stopped by the day to day humdrum of everyday life.

I want to be that interesting, bearded man. At least sometimes.

It's nice to explore new places over a three-day weekend--but it's also nice to come home to a cool fucking wife and comfy giant bed. I get so caught up in the romanticism of traveling and doing, but it can get a little exhausting if you force it. As much as I like getting out and doing my best impression of a dog with his head out the window (metaphorically speaking, of course), it's nice to sit back and appreciate what you've got right under your nose.

Comfy, king size bed? Check. Ornery black retriever? Check. Lovely wife? Check. I even have a house that I don't rent and a fancy new four-wheel drive truck! So I suppose when real life takes over and I'm not able to head up the mountains or jump a plane to another state, I can sit in my blue, plastic Adirondack chair that my wife bought me for our anniversary, sip a cold drink, and look over my 1/10 acre (that only takes six minutes to mow!) and appreciate life.

Moving or not moving, things are pretty swell. It's all considered part of the journey.

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Farming, Drinking, and a Demo Derby.

The family and I took our annual excursion to Platte Center, Nebraska for the 4th of July weekend last week. It did not disappoint.

Along with the expected, yet incredibly entertaining festivities--including tailgating for the parade on Main Street, drinking, the kid's tractor pull (pedaling, of course), Super Savers Fried Chicken, the demo derby, and more drinking. It's America at it's finest. It's a remarkable celebration that is simplified to small town standards. Nothing fake--just a pure Nebraska farmland holiday. It's basically a John Cougar Mellencamp song. And I love it.

Before the 4th's festivities, though, there was work to be done. Farm work. Although I grew up in the country and have my fair share of brush hogging (that's mowing a field with your tractor) hours logged, I have never manned a rig quite the size of the John Deere 4550 that I had the pleasure of moving hay bales with.

Driving this "Cadillac of farm tractors" was therapy for me. It was just me (and my nephew, Beck, at times), country music on the radio, air conditioning on (yes, air conditioning), and acres of hay bales that needed transporting. For me, it was a different world. No people (except, once again, for Beck), no worries, no stress--just work to be done.

I like Nebraska. And I love the farm. It's where my wife was raised. It's where her sister was raised, her dad was raised, and where memories of her family are everywhere. It's simple, real, and doesn't contain much bullshit. It's a place where my brother-in-law and father-in-law and I shoot guns at Coors bottles. Where my nephews catch toads and set crawdad traps at the creek. Bee-bee guns are at a six year-old's disposal in the bed of Papa's pickup. The three year-old has a mountain of sand to waller in for hours. Looking out the enormous front window of the farm house is looking out over hundreds of acres of land. You can barely see your closest neighbor. It's an island in itself.

One day I hope to write a post in this blog about incorporating the farm into my life more. It needs to stay in the family for years to come, and by "doing" hopefully that will be accomplished.

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Bad-Ass Ramble to Creede.

I'll probably write about this on all three of my blogs (already have on http://frontrangeanglersfishingreport.blogspot.com/), but I drove down to Creede, CO for an industry gathering and some phenomenal fishing on the Rio Grande. Floated for three days and drank heavily with my friends from Wolf Creek Anglers out of Pagosa and South Fork, The Ramble House out of Creede, and Duranglers out of (duh) Durango.

My reps with Simms and Idylwilde Flies put on the shindig, and for that I thank them. Feeding 30some fly fishermen food and booze for four days can't be cheap. Our PBR bill alone had to be somewhere in the $176,000 range--if I were to take a guess.

The three aforementioned outfitters split up the river in 3-4 sections and hauled our asses to and from put-in and take-out. It was a convoy of drift boats and rafts attacking both sides of the river, plucking fat brown trout from their submerged willow tree cover by way of dry fly.

When the time came to end our floats, cold beer and nasty tequila awaited us at take-out and primed us for what would be a 4-night drunken takeover of Creede. Budweiser, PBR, Maker's Mark, Hooooornitos, and anything else that our dirtbag guides (that's a term of endearment) would make us drink.

It was "doing" in the purest form of the word. Meeting new people, making new friends, visiting a new town, fishing a new river--all damn good times.

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Go Listen To Good Live Music

The older I get, the easier it is to talk myself out of going to a concert. The cost, the drive, the crowd. It tends to make me feel crotchety and irritable. The idea of going to a concert generally sounds great, but the reality rarely lives up to my internal hype. I think that coincides with the transition in music my tastebuds have taken over the years. Although I still love punk and rock n' roll, I tend to be attracted to the more subdued live shows that visit town.

I've seen a handful of great shows over the past couple years--The Black Keys, Willie Nelson, Ray Lamontagne--and my most recent gig certainly falls into that category.

April and I spent the evening on Saturday enjoying a delightful live concert provided by Hayes Carll.

If you aren't familiar with Hayes, pick up his album, "Trouble In Mind"--I think it's his best one.

Nothing like hanging out at a Country and Western show, drinking a few High Life's, and listening to great music. Hayes can write a great song, and with his fantastic drawl, he can deliver it on stage, too.

Also, the Bluebird Theater in Denver is a super-cool, intimate little venue that isn't designed around mosh pits or elbow-to-asshole crowds. Instead, it's tiered upward from the stage with small platforms and rails for easy and close-up viewing. Perfect for drinking some beer and listening to a legitimate Roots, Americana, Outlaw, Alt-Country act (this is how Hayes jokingly describes his music) like Hayes Carll.

So...even though Ticket Master absolutely rapes your bank account, pick a show or two, bite the bullet, and go enjoy yourself.

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Belly Up.

I fish. Lots. But one thing I've never done is float around a lake in a belly boat, casting at the banks. So today, I did.

A belly boat , or U-boat, is basically an innertube-type of fishing craft that the angler sits in while his feet hang below. Generally, you're wearing waders because you're essentially waist deep while sitting in the water. You have flippers strapped onto your feet so you can putt around--albeit backwards.




I borrowed my friend Peter's boat today and set out for a little lake in the Boulder city limits. On about the fourth or fifth cast, I hooked up with a really substantial fish. That fish ended up being a 22 inch walleye.


I putted around for a few hours, chucking big streamers with my six weight. Got several bass to hit--one going around 4 pounds.

big bass

bigger bass

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Frikkin' Sauced.

If you bbq your meats--not just smoke them, but bbq them--then you probably use bbq sauce. If you make your own sauce, and it's good, then you rule. I don't do that near enough anymore. Mainly because I can't make it as good as my mos favorito bottled sauces...which are straight outta KC.

Gates, Bryant's, Oklahoma Joe's, and several other top notch sauces accessorize my chicken, ribs, and brisket. In fact, I grilled Gates-soaked chicken last night.

Sauces is tasty.

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I - Like - a' Dogs! And Camping...

Found a new lake about 45 minutes from our house last week and decided to pull the pop-up there to camp at it for a couple days. Sadly, this was the first time we have had the camper out this year. With stupid weather up high, it's been difficult to find a decent campsite close by. They seem to either be booked or covered in five feet of snow.

So we loaded up the Pathfinder and the Yakima box on top, threw the pup in the back, hooked on the pop-up, and hit the road. Carter Lake is right in between Longmont and Loveland, CO, and rests up in the foothills a bit.

It's a "big" lake, as far as Colorado lakes go. I kind of laugh at this description, because where I'm from an 1,100 acre lake is not big, a 55,000 acre lake is. It's plenty big enough to set up camp for a couple nights, or putt around in a boat for the day, though.

Cliff enjoying the Saturday afternoon boat ride

It was freakin' refreshing, to say the least, sitting around the campfire with my wife and dog, listening to music and drinking appropriate elixirs. No computers, no phones, no annoyances to speak of. Just the crackle of the fire, thoughts of percolating coffee and sizzling bacon in the morning, and the feeling of satisfaction after netting a few bass that afternoon.

Along with relaxation, we also encountered a little excitement when a sailboat decided to capsize and sink in front of us during an afternoon wind storm. After finding out that the passengers had escaped with minor cuts and bruises, April and I pulled up our camp chairs, grabbed a cold beer out of the cooler, and decided to let their misfortune serve as our entertainment for the next hour or so.

I thought to myself several times during the trip, that I love camping. So many things that I don't know if I could live without, all combined into one activity. Making and staring at fire, fishing, chopping wood, pulling a heavy trailer with my truck, sitting, my family, stars, water, cooking, drinking. It's all there. I must go again...very soon.

Casa de Reins-Todd on Carter Lake




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