One ruled out,, 2000 to go

In Jeff's world the chase, the expectation, the anticipation is the best part...what I'm saying is that reality and my life don't usually collide in the same sentence and a good plan turns into a...ahhh....an experience. Kinda like the vision I had of 5 days on the Alaska State Ferry, we'd stroll the decks and hold hands, we'd chat and play music for the passengers, we'd eat nice food and see whales....NOT...it was like a prison ship, with rain.

So having said that part of our new plan to find happiness ever after was to look around the Pacific Northwest for the idyllic town nestled in the woods and a river city to boot. Well, Salmon Idaho ain't it.We'd been around western Montana but had never gone down to Salmon Idaho which is only 100 miles form us here in Hamilton. The drive is gorgeous and Lost Trail Pass is steep and exciting and lush with Pine and Aspen  forest. But as you get down into the Salmon River valley it gets arid and high desert looking, it certainly doesn't look like salmon country much like the middle Columbia River. I'm sure there were salmon here at one point but I didn't have to ask. As we picnic ed in the City Park across from the City Hall and took in the river the left side of my brain said to little water, to many people, to far from the ocean to....darn hot, it was 88 as we had Heineken and Vienna Sausages with Swiss cheese.

But like Sloooowdotna Salmon is a river city, nobody has an exclusive on that deal. If you think we have the fish theme compulsion in Soldotna let me tell you, it spread or maybe we even stole it ourselves. Lotsa fish in the this river city.

So as we drove the streets we see Salmon is a little more of a working city than Hamilton. Hamilton is more lush and full of affluent retiree's of which we aren't one. But the Bitteroot river just blocks away is way prettier, quieter and cleaner. I'll show you what I mean.

I fish and then we walk our 3 miles every morning, it's the active lifestyle we've talked of. We've found several different river trails and a one hour bike ride that looks down on the river valley and then it drops down and  we ride along the river and canal's right back to our house. Because of the braided nature of the river and Montana stream access laws you can walk and fish virtually anywhere, I have yet to fish around a single person ....of course I've also yet to catch a fish.

So all of that is cool, metaphorically, it's been really hot here... But what isn't cool and which is something I don't know what to do about so maybe somebody can offer some advice. What isn't cool is my neighbor. She has no idea how rude she is when she goes to work and her yapping  Heinz 97 type dog sits in the window and barks all day. Now day time maybe I can handle but he barks all night long as well when she's in the house. How in the hell can somebody live like that. The dogs barks at me every time I leave the house, every time. Then to give you an idea of the hood here her next door neighbor has the year round yard sale going on so we have traffic and people walking around all the time.....yikes, maybe I'm just not a city guy and our experiment with civilization ain't going to work and we'll end up buying a house away from town...darn it, because theres something to be said about walking to the market and the river like we do everyday.

At the Saturday Market I met the ' Fly Guy ' . Chuck gave me good counsel and sold me some ultra expensive hand tied flies. And he even offered solace when he said that even the guides ( of which I'm gonna hire one ) are having trouble as the warm air = warm water = no bite and like every dedicated pescador he said it would get better and fall fishing will be red hot. In the meantime I'm using worms tomorrow at a new place I gotta drive to.

Finally, maybe, hopefully we're getting Century Link internet tomorrow so in a week or so I'll post video of a new song and I'd bet a few fish pics. Like everything it ain't what we're used to but right now nothing is....Hope everyone stays safe and happy.💚😎🐟🐠🎵🎵🎸🎸 OH, how's about that haircut ? At least I'm tucking my ear lobes into my shirt yet like my grandpa and my dad did.