November 2000

November 2000

Week of November 1 - 6

(Lake Martin, Alabama):
After leaving Orlando and the CITGO President’s Meeting, we started heading north again, ultimately to New Hampshire but with a stop at Lake Martin, Alabama, for a couple of days of pre-practice for the B.A.S.S. Invitational coming here in December. At Lake Martin we found the water very low, and very clear. We spent two days looking around and fishing a couple of creeks down near the dam,

and we caught some good fish in the clear water on a Shad Rap and light line, but it didn’t seem like most of the baitfish or the bass had moved up shallow yet. We expect they will by next month though, and our goal here this week was really just to scout out some good looking areas, and to plant some brush piles which we hope will harbor some fish by the time we return. After a couple of days at Lake Martin it was time to continue our journey northward. We left the boat and the Suburban at the campground there at the lake, and spent the next three days driving the motorhome 1,400 miles back home.

Week of November 7 - 13

(New Hampshire):
We’re back at the lake house now, where we’ll be living for the next month. It’s a lot different this time of year, with all the summer residents gone. It’s peaceful and quiet, very few cars in the daytime and only the call of the loons to break the stillness of the nights.

Our daughter Katelyn is a junior in high school this year, and before too long will be having to make some choices regarding college. We’ve been discussing this with her, and have sent away for information packets from a few schools, and this week we took her on her first campus visit. We drove over to the University of New Hampshire on a cool, rainy, late fall day, and while the weather was not the best Kate did seem impressed with the school tour, and Dan got to visit his alma-mater and relive some old college memories. It’s still way too early for Kate to be making any decisions, but we’re glad we went just to have gotten the experience of doing a college visit.

Week of November 14 - 20

(New Hampshire):
A few years ago, before we started traveling and fishing as much as we do now, Dan used to host an annual hunting party weekend at the lake house during deer season in November. We haven’t done it in a while, but this year we decided to try it again, but with a little twist. We invited all the wives this year, and advertised it as a hunting and shopping weekend. We invited all of Dan’s old fishing club, and ended up with about twelve people in total who stayed the entire weekend at the lake. As it worked out, only a few of them actually went hunting, the rest content to just hang around the house during the day, or travel up to the outlet malls in North Conway for a few hours. The evenings were what you might expect when a bunch of old friends get together for the weekend, with no one having to leave until Sunday afternoon. There were card games that went on for hours, cases of beer, lots of cigar smoke and exotic drinks, and more than a few rolls of film to capture all of the foolishness. The weekend was a big success - no deer shot but everyone had a good time, and we’re hoping to do it all again next year.

Week of November 21 - 27

(New Hampshire):
This was the first Thanksgiving we have been home to spend with the family in a number of years. We had planned a big dinner with turkey and all the fixin’s for Thanksgiving Day at the lake house, but unfortunately Annie’s mom injured her back at the last moment and wasn’t able to attend. Instead she had to spend the day (and many more afterwards) in bed recovering. We did though have all the kids for the day, and did the big turkey-thing, and even after having done it all the day before at their other house they were gracious enough not to complain about having the same meal two days in a row.

The weather has turned quite cold this week, and we’re starting to see skim-ice on the lake in the morning. The mountains in the distance have been snow-capped for a couple of weeks, so this weekend much to the kids delight we decided that winter had officially arrived and the skiing and snowboarding could begin. We left the house at 8am on Friday morning, and an hour later arrived at Loon Mountain, in the heart of the White Mountain National Forest. Jeff had his friend Matt with him, and the two of them quickly disappeared up the mountain with their snowboards while Annie, Chris and I carried our gear into the lodge and began dressing for the cold. It was 15 degrees at the base, and up the mountain it was even colder and the wind was blowing. Once dressed Chris and I went outside and fooled around with our snowboards on the small slope just outside the lodge. We weren’t at all sure, now that we were actually here, that we really wanted to venture up the mountain in these conditions. When Jeff and Matt finally made it down from the top and their first words to us were "Don’t go up there!", our decision was made. Chris, Annie and I stayed at the bottom the rest of the day while Jeff and Matt braved the conditions at the top.

The next day was Saturday, and the season-opening day at Ragged Mountain. Since Chris never got to do any snowboarding yesterday, I took him over to Ragged. The weather was MUCH nicer, with the sun shining all day and temps in the high 20’s, and there couldn’t have been more than 50 people at the mountain all day. Those are the conditions I like - sunshine, warm weather, no crowds, no pressure. I was a pretty good skier once, and I had all of my kids on skis before they were five years old, but no one does it anymore. KeyesJrnlLogo They have all migrated over to snowboarding. So while I myself would have been a lot more comfortable on skis out there today, I feel I can be a lot closer to my kids by learning to do the snowboarding thing with them. Even though this means falling down 20 or 30 times in the course of the day, including one super-slow-motion face-plant in which I thought I had ruptured my spleen, Chris and I had a great time, just the two of us, and I can’t wait to go back and do it again.

Link to: December 2000