Life's a song

Mother Earth has changed since I was a child,

The east is a beast and the west is really wild,

and the headlines say the news is bleak and the future don't look so bright -- Toby Keith

Some times I feel like I'm in a song. Just when you think that people are mean, it seems to be spreading , maybe the dark is winning....maybe it's worst than we thought....WELL, in Jeff's world something always happens to make sense of the nonsense. Sometimes it's a little thing, sometimes it's just freedom and nice deep breath, sometimes it's the power of people, wonderful people that make me smile and realize this ol world ain't doin so bad....

It's Tim's first morning to fish here at Team X south so you know we did. Tides wrong, waves wrong, no fish, no birds....it was great. As we were breaking camp this couple walks up and starts the teasing immediately.....' no fish ???...the 12 year old on the Jetty has 2...mmm, well we weren't really trying and every fisherman would rather see a kid catch one than catch one himself....right ??? Right ??? In 15 short minutes Tim and I got to know and admire Alfredo and Susan. Alfredo is Mazatlateco and about the youngest 71 year old I ever met. He's the Mexican Age Class Iron Man champ so we'll be rooting for him at next years event. We compared six packs, life's direction and the happen chance of knowing people in common when you ask and notice the right language....the language of love / communication  / respect.  Susan and I speak tourista well. She was in the Hotel business in Aspen Colorado so you know she knows the way. She has a daughter in Valdez who is so outoorsy active that the men can't keep up, I expect just like her mother. And oh, what a smile when we talk about birds and nature....So hey you three, thanks for being who you are, you're steering the ship in the right direction, so thanks, and welcome to Jeff's world. This ol world is gonna be just fine.😎

Bet ya never seen anything in the world like that before eh ? Well I hadn't either until MPeasy smelled it but it still took her 3 days to finally inspector Clouseau that deal and track it down to my fishing tackle satchel....That's what a 2 peso Mandarin Orange looks like when you forget about in your fishing bag for 6 weeks. It was actually  kinda soft , fuzzy and cuddly. It reminded me a bit of my 4th grade science project where I got petri dishes from the hospital and then breathed into them and let them culture so people could see what germs looked like....when I revealed my project (orange) by the reaction you'd have thought I had unleashed the Adromeda Strain.  Oh well...

That would be Maxwell Steven King, my son who also out fished me this week. Not bad for a city guy eh ? He hauled in this respectable Monda on unfamiliar fishing gear and in the middle of the day, a chip off the ol block as they say. Here's a pic of the the three of us on our up and over hike at 9:00 a.m. , about as early as the nocturnal Max gets up....at least on vacation.

 Minnesota Fats when playing the Tuxcedo'd  Will Mosconi said " putting a Tux on a pool player is like putting ice cream on a hot dog, it don't work "...Well the pic below proves that you can put linen on a fishing guide and transform him into the well respected Don Julio...Can you imagine what a little Pro Cure could do for that outfit eh ? And thanks for wonderful night out MP and all.

So here's the deal for all of you that come to Mile 14 to see the dead fish pics that I am / used to be famous for . I guess we can frame this into Pro Guide Tip # 7 . When you come back next week one of the following will happen for sure !
1.  I will catch a fish
2.  I will lie about a fish
3.  I will borrow someones fish
4.  I will buy a fish
5.  In the case of the last three I'll have MP take my name off the shirts.


                                                                       

Back to living, loving and writing now that my ' malaise ' is over

finally...you see I came down with an ultra rare for me head cold right after New Years. It was horrible, my sinus was so clogged up the pressure hurt and then my throat got raw and then it went to my chest and I was pushing 2 weeks of it. So, I got on Wikipedia and looked up sinus cold and then self prescribed myself the proper dose of Amoxicillin which I started on Friday. Today is Thursday and finally I'm close to being my old self for whatever that's worth....I was just really tired and to use my word, loogy all the time but Wikipedia had a list of symptoms for my cold that included something I'd never heard before, the dreaded ' malaise '. Webster lined me out on that deal and it's no wonder I felt like #^&@ that malaise is horrible....melancholy , anxiety , general discomfort , uneasiness who's cause is difficult to identify ( that one is scary ), disquiet ( I hate anything quiet ), anguish, weakness....so....take my advice, at the first sign of malaise you better get on some drugs...period- finito. Don't let this happen to you !

But having our oldest son Maxwell Steven come to Mazatlan helped me kick my malaise. He got me up off the couch and helped me take my mind off this debilitating condition that I didn't know I had. Here's a pic of MP and Max at Stone Island where we wiled the day away playing Scrabble and sharing fellowship....Note to MP and Max...adding and S to pluralize any word that somebody else painstakingly created is a chicken #^&@ strategy...especially when you do it on a triple word score. It's just no way to win and you both should be ashamed. Period.

So yesterday we got Max to the dentist, a bit of parenting ya know. He hadn't been to the dentist in 4 years because nothing was hurting, you know the deal... we've got 4 large invested in those pearly whites so we got our friend Francisco to do a cleaning along with the ' visit a dentist ' lecture. It was getting hot when we left and spotted a new refresco stand and figured we'd get a refreshing drink to have on our walk through the new city park by the aquarium thats being built. Well it wasn't quite what we thought they'd be.  I had Mango - Crema that would make a bulldog break his chain it was soooo good. It was Mango sorbet layered with thick real cream and then a small layer of something that could have been lard or Crisco with a real sweet Karo type of syrup on top...boy howdy. MP went a bit more conservative and had frozen Jamaica which is actually Hibiscus flower pedals, imagine that .

This close up below will tell you why I always try to lose 10 pounds before we go to Mexico. It's why I gain it all back as well....I really believe that the wonderful food here is one of Mexico's best kept secrets, people N.O.B. just don't seem to really know just how good the food is.

Then we walked through the Park which is being re-built around the saltwater lagoon that used to be pristine with crocodiles etc. We did find some natural habitat and the birds and iguanas were everywhere. The Park was closed and I guess we shouldn't have walked through it but our Mexican neighbors rarely will tell you no...but they will give ya a pretty good dirty look when you're somewhere you shouldn't be...Mp only stayed mad at me for an hour. Here is the view of the new lake which has concrete paths all around and walla.... a boat with fisherman aboard.

I know a lot of you regular Mile 14ers are wondering where the dead fish pics are. Well I ain't got any O.K. ? I shouldn't have to explain everything, I just don't have any and I know most of you know why...I just don't,,,and besides , I've had a malaise problem.

But come back, Please. I'll fish better and harder. Saturday night I play music at a bar so that might be a good story....gotta go, Max has us on the run, and that's a wonderful thing.

I'll try anything twice

I took that same picture in front of the same bird blind about 2 1/2 miles up from us on Cerritos back in 2002, our second year in Mazatlan. I had my first digital camera and I set the timer the same way in the same place and snapped a not so good pic of me and the same woman. All of that is good. Whats strange though is how much it's all changed in 16 short years. Once isolated this fresh water lagoon is still linked to the ocean but development surrounds.....progress ya know. I hadn't really thought of doing a deju vue trip but as I rode my bike out to Cerritos point to get a chocolate chip monster cookie I glanced through the jungle and walla.....pink Flamingos, and many of them. So I rode home and told the resident bird watcher we gotta go. Well, by the time we went the Flamingos were gone and it's a good thing because MPeasy was trying to convince that the were really Spoon Bills which are pink as well. But I seen em and she didn't so we'll stick with the less common Flamingos.

It was a nice cool morning and we were walking through the natural foliage holding hands and saying things like "  man if I was one of those Conquistadors I'd have a little trouble with all those sharp objects"....and of course...." wonder if you can eat that " when we came across the highlight of the trip....the viewing tower. All welded metal sitting on concrete pilasters and an easy 50 feet high with 4 levels of semi platform where you and a skinny person could view all the .....well, you'll see.

The tower is on a levy kinda deal that separates the salt water lagoon from the fresh water lagoon. As you can see it looks just  a little top heavy, ya know not enough base for it's height....but you know me I gotta get right up and although Mpeasy was a little hesitant I got her half way up and then did what any idiot married man would do....I rocked the tower back and forth a bit with my weight and oh baby that thing had some deflection as we used to say as construction hounds. We didn't panic, really but it did seem to move more than it should so we climbed down and noticed what we should have noticed to begin with....after all, it's Mexico.

Yup, totally rusted out. A three legged 50 footer...and the other three didn't really look all that that good. But...the views were worth it in the Jeff King book of life. Here's the view towards the ocean with Mazatlan's biggest building and then inland to where all of us will be living someday. All around this oasis is building. A water Park, hotels, Emerald bay the most exclusive resort and then this......beauty.

And of course from the tower you could see birds everywhere just no Pink ones to keep our Spoon Bill / Flamingo argu....ahh...discussion alive.

The day was mostly a ' hand holder' but birds were of course the vehicle to get us there so....here's my best bird pic of the day. I took it with no filter , camera set on ' intelligent automatic ' ( I love that )...all I really did was point shoot and make sure the battery was charged....amazing huh ?

So that brings me to Pro Guide Tip # 003 ,,,, To do a good job ya gotta be happy. Happiness tips : dishes, hand holders, don't forget the steak sauce , shut up ( only when you should )....easy peasy.