Wednesday August 19

Bought some new white t-shirts at TJ Maxx in Missoula before driving to Dillon, MT. Hit a fly shop to get some last minute intel on the river I was going to fish next.....the Upper Ruby. To get to the Upper Ruby you need to drive roughly 60 miles on dirt roads. Huge tracts of Montana land is being bought up by wealthy out of towners. This is a large bone of contention with the native Montanians, who after the price of land is driven up, can’t afford to by land themselves. On the way, I believe I drove through wilderness owned by Ted Turner.

In Montana you are allowed access to any river as long as you stay below the high water mark. The problem is....... if the river I surrounded on all sides by hundreds of miles of privately owned land, one can walk a very long way from a bridge or other public access point to reach the prime water. In a sense, these ritzy out of towners are eliminating public access to some of the better rivers at an alarming rate. This is especially true of the Ruby river......hence the 60 plus mile drive to state owned land.

The Ruby didn’t disappoint.........and I think that on this day my love for Montana finally took top billing on the list of my favorite places to be and to fish. Montana is truly the most wild place I’ve ever been. It’s America’s 4th largest state but has one of its smallest populations. The views are stunning at every turn, the summertime temps are cool, and the fish are simply everywhere..... in every pocket, pool, and riffle, in every river.

Before bed at desolate Cottonwood Campground I caught a ton of trout all on dry flies.

Tuesday August 18

Crossed Oregon and a bit of Washington and stopped for a few hours in a town called Coeur d’Alene in Idaho. The town surrounded a lake of the same name....it was hot so the lake and the beach were crowded. Seaplanes were taking off giving tourists rides around the lake. It reminded me of when I did that somewhere with my mom when I was a kid. Ate some fairly bad pizza on a recommendation from the office of tourism and headed out of town.....it was a decent break from the road.

On the way out of town I noticed what looked like a bunch of cars around some kind of dirt track.....turned out to be the Tuesday night local BMX races. It was pretty cool....kids of all ages.....one kid was so small he couldn’t make it up some of the hills and needed to be pushed. On the other end of the spectrum there were the nutty kids who’d fly through the air with no fear at all. It was the highlight of the day.

Took a shower around 10pm and slept at the Wally in Missoula, Montana....at least 40 other campers in the lot.

Monday August 17

The NFMF is a slice of Heaven. It’s one of the nicest, purest, most scenic spots I know of on the planet. The place where the camper was set up had a nice view of the river and the mountains behind it. We each caught a couple trout, but as Matt said, “You don’t need to catch any fish to have a great day at the NFMF”. We fished around and hung around until about 1:00.

We headed to the Lower Willamette for float and fish in a classic Mackenzie style drift boat with our friend, Scott. A drift boat, is like a row boat with a high bow...one guy rows in the middle, one guy fishes in the front and the other in the back. It is designed to take on rocks and rapids while providing the perfect moving platform to fish. The float was fantastic and Matt had the hot fly. He managed to catch about eight decent sized trout. Certain times in your life you feel you are in the right place at the right time and that’s how it felt floating the Willamette that night...the temp was perfect...the sun was nice...it was a perfect summer night....I feel fortunate to have had such a great opportunity...and a special shout out is due to Scott Kinney who took us for the float in his boat.......

We managed to see one steelhead taken by a unique looking dude.......it took him over a half an hour to land it. I guess what was so funny about it was that the fish was so big and the guy was such a unique looking character, note the picture.....

The last hoorah...it was time to head back east, but before we did, we went out to eat one last time. The place was called Good Times. It appeared to be the Eugene breeding ground for future participants in the World Wrestling Federation. TVs in the place showed nothing but WWF wrestling from the 80’s at obnoxiously full volume. The wait staff looked like they were the inter-continental tag team champs. You can imagine the high quality of the service. It took them over an hour to prepare Matt’s sandwich. I asked one guy for a Coke refill and he told me to go to the bar and get it myself because he was busy. I should have thrown the figure four leg lock on him.

We said our goodbyes and it was time to start the long ride home back to Massachusetts...

Found a Super Wal-Mart a couple hours north of Eugene. There was this motley crew of haggard looking dudes that got off a tour bus and went into Wal-Mart. It turned out they were a band called, The Maine. They were currently on The Warped Tour.....whatever.

Sunday August 16

Slept in late again...hung around Matt’s until about 2:00. We met up with all of Matt’s family at the Scandinavian Festival. The Scandi Fest is basically the Sterling Fair except everyone involved wears a blue vest. We watched some traditional dancing performed by students in national dress. It was kind of a snoozer. Then it was tennis time...

When I first asked Matt if he wanted to play doubles with me in the Scandi tourney, he wasn’t sure his body and skills could hack it, but after seeing him hit the other day, I knew we had a chance. Keep in mind, Matt hadn’t picked up a racket in twenty years. We would have to win four rounds to win the Scandi title. Round one, I thought we were going to have some trouble because they looked good....older guys who had clearly played a before...sometimes the older guys are the most dangerous. We took care of business. Next we took on the typical teenager who tried to hit the ball as hard as he could, but fortunately, he hit too many of them off the fence in the air. We took that match too. In our third match, we had some problems. Two high school kids...one was super aggressive at the net. We were only playing one set against every opponent and at one point in the match was 4 all. We managed to win the next two games, winning 6-4 and headed to the finals. While we gave them a good fight, we didn’t play well enough to win the finals...it’s as simple as that. When all was said and done, we kept in mind that Matt hadn’t played in twenty years and had a lot more fun than maybe he anticipated. His emotions went from early skepticism to intensity. With all the childhood sports moments we shared, it was great to do it again.

Playing the actual game of tennis is one thing...it has its value for fitness and competition, but tennis has had a much greater affect on my life. Learning the skills of the game has provided me so many opportunities to share great experiences with many types of people, be it in the next town or even a far away country. When you are young you are unable to understand the potential benefits of so much of what you do. The game continues to give back to me and I am so glad I got involved with it back in high school.
After the tourney we went back to Matt’s where Rina served up some chicken and mac & cheese. We took a shower and then took the hour drive up into the woods, near Oakridge, Oregon for some fishing tomorrow on the North Fork of the Middle Fork of the Willamette River

Saturday August 15

Slept til nearly 10:00 am after the long day yesterday. Worked on the blog for about two hours. I decided to enter the mixed and men’s doubles tennis tournaments at Junction City, Oregon’s annual Scandinavian Festival. Bought a pair of tennis shorts at Bi-Mart and got swept in the mixed open division. After the tourney, we headed into Eugene to meet Matt, Rina and the kids at the Eugene Emerald’s baseball game. The Em’s ballpark reminds me a lot of the one in Pittfield, MA. It’s old and is made mostly out of wood. I believe that both ballparks are two of the five oldest in the country. One misplaced cigarette butt could torch that place to the ground. Sadly, it’s the final season at this ballpark as the Em’s will be playing at the baseball complex of the University of Oregon next year.

Highlight of the day was sitting Matt’s backyard around an awesome fire with Matt and his family. Loved the fire in the fire pit.....

Friday August 14

Up to Portland for the Dew Tour. Had a wonderful day with Matt and Danielle. Saw two events...BMX dirt jumping and the half pipe skateboarding. All these events took place at the Rose Garden...home of the NBA’s Portland Trailblazers. The dirt jumping was the best. Those dudes get insane air over these massive jumps. There was this one kid who was doing these front flips with his arms extended out to his sides. They also had this big jumbo-tron and you could text messages and they were posted on this giant screen.....so we had some fun with that. The skateboard vert wasn’t as good as the BMX because it was hard to see the technicality of the tricks that they were doing. There was this one long haired kid that I got a kick out of...his hair was all wild and he would crank it up to he sky. I guess the biggest names I saw were Bob Burnquist and Pierre-Luc Gagnon, the winner of the competition.

The whole event was somewhat disorganized. It was easy to improve your seating arrangements by slipping past the clueless ushers and knuckleheads they had working there. On the way home we stopped at Burgerville for a chocolate shake, an amazing cheeseburger, and Walla Walla onion rings. While at Burgerville, I met this couple who had just returned home from a trip to Boston. As it turns out, this guys father was two years younger/older (I can’t remember) than my dad and grew up on Whitmarsh Ave in Worcester. His name was Ralph “Chip” Hannon. Wonder if my dad knew him....

Drove the two hours south to Eugene reminiscing about our Tanglewood youth. Danielle, Matt’s oldest daughter, was loving every minute of it.

I want to put a few words in the blog about what a wonderful young lady Matt’s daughter Danielle has become ....she’s got a positive attitude, is polite, sensible, and mature well beyond her age. She was super responsible around the house, has a good understanding of right and wrong and is a great sister to her younger brother and sister....she is clearly heading down the right path... I know a ton kids her age who are not even half the person she has become...Every time I arrive she is so pumped to see me and we’re both a little bummed when its time to say goodbye...I look forward to hanging out with her in the future.

Thursday August 13

Woke up to sunshine. First item on the day’s agenda was to go to the Oregon Duck’s football practice. Turns out we got there about four hours to early and would have to return later for the outdoor session. We decided to do some errands. However, before we left, I managed to wrangle my way to Autzen Stadium, the home football stadium of the Oregon Ducks. Besides the sheer magnificence of the stadium, the only other interesting observation I had was how turf was very ungrass-like...it was like a super soft spongy moss. If I lived in Eugene, I would have season tickets. The Ducks are the only game in town.

We ran some errands...fishing license, got some tennis rackets for a tourney I was going to play in...watched Matt eat eleven pieces of pizza at the Pizza Hut buffet and then hit a few balls on the University of Oregon tennis courts.

Went back to Autzen to watch the outdoor football practice. I always enjoy listening to the way the coaches communicate with the players...some get so fired up and others are tactful and reserved. Remember that PGA golfer named Casey someone, who won the lawsuit granting him the use of a golfcart on the PGA tour due to his disability? He was there too, just watching. Matt pointed him out to me.

Hit the Mackenzie River behind the hospital where Matt works...basically skunked. Ah, you know, just hitting one of the greatest trout streams on the planet on the way home from watching the football practice...no biggie.

Out to eat then home to bed.