The weak in review

 Well, today marks a week since we arrived at Mile 14 Southern Bureau . It's one of the unfair things in life that no matter how cool , how special something is you can still get used to it, it becomes routine . and that's what I'm struggling with right now, to NOT have that feeling. I think I'm doing OK with it and I suppose an entire winter and half a summer of doctor appointments has helped to reset my rudder....I'm feeling good.

My readers have many times heard me report on the beer culture in Montana. The pic above is the Travel stop chain Town Pump's new biggest store with a 1600 sq. ft. Beer Cave. Well Montana doesn't have an exclusive on beer consumption, right here in Mazatlan Mexico they're pretty darn good at it . With the holidays arriving the stores are stocked to the ceiling with Pacifico and this display of mini Kegs jumped out at me. 3 gallons of all kinds of beer nobody's ever heard of ...

You're probably wondering why I didn't start the post with a fish pic, or maybe you're not...My first morning I walked up on my old friend Alejandro as he was wrestling this Toro. He's well, I'm well and both just flat happy to have another season together fishing .

Many Manta's on the beach like this one. They swim around in formation and when you see them it's best to not fish. There are several different types of Rays here and this guy is the one with the dangerous stinger that has sent many a pescador to the hospital emergency room...So all of us kinda drop the machismo for this guy and are openly afraid of him but we still need to recover that 200 peso Kastmaster it's got in his wing. 

I've seen a lot of things in sport fishing in my life and many things in surf fishing in the last 25 years.  One thing is just kinda understood with fishing, it's best to be either next to or on top of the water...not in it. If you look to the very middle left of this pic you'll see a guy holding his rod up after he swam out to either get more distance or frankly who knows ? Hey man....the fish ain't that important !

So me and MPeasy are in flow. Today we're off to the movies to see Gladiator 2 and pick up take out Chinese . We hope to be home for sunset, got my first aerial assist just last night.

So it goes like this....up @ 4:30 and read the Helena and Anchorage papers. Before sun up hike 1/2 Mile up the beach and fish until 8:00 or 9:00 then go have breakfast with MP. Then hit the terrace for nap #1, we call this the yoga nap as I usually fall asleep to the melodic droning of Alexia's voice as she leads the yoga class. Then read until noon or so, right now I'm doing a Michael Connelly novel. Have tostado's for lunch. Ride Bike up to Oxxo store for beer and chips. About 2:00 take indoor nap . About three meet with kennel mates in pool for gossip . Cocktail hour at 5:00 including sunset ritual. Practice songs. Eat supper . Watch Oak Island and fall asleep.....repeat with slight variations such as go watch fishing boats come in with catch, shop , early lunch on beach....here's a pic of Jaiba ( crab ) tostados .

I WILL catch a fish soon so come on back and see....

 

Let me sing ya song

 Well as Geno always said ' we jump the jet ' on Monday for our winter home in Mazatlan. I'm soooo looking forward to a normal winter after last years unexpected retreat . It's a cool life style and with my neck better  from the ablation procedure I should get back to being the harvester that I was....It goes like this....fish....nap....read....nap.....hike....sunset....play music .....repeat......I'll be posting real soon so I hope ya'all come back. In the meantime hows about a song. My friend Kiki recorded this for me at his home in Prada Del Sol in 2015 . We'll see ya soon Kiki !  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGxtkqiF00E

please watch it till the end, I gotta off to a kinda slow start on that one

Everybody say Cheese

That's the stuff right there . This stuff was part of our lives for over 40 years.....Christmas ? get yourself some Echo Lake cheese spread . Company coming over ? get yourself some Echo Lake Cheese spread.  Somebody die ? get yourself some Echo Lake cheese spread . For 20 years Hobo Jim would serve it every Friday and Saturday night at BJ's bar along with wonderful servings of home made music. Jim swore that not only was it the best Cheese he'd ever ate and that it also had restorative qualities and was the best hang over cure he had ever found !

Through the years MP has made our version of it but , well , it just ain't the same. The original recipe is creamy and has a subtle smokey taste along with jalapeno. She thinks one of the secrets is the cheese that's used and how it it extruded or blended to make the texture right....in any case this stuff is so good it can make a Bulldog break his chain.

And the story goes like this : Echo Lake Lockers was started in the 1970's south of Soldotna about 8 miles . It was and still is a butcher shop that sold meat and processed fish and game.  They had many specialty items of which tons of this stuff was sold annually, no doubt their most popular product. The store was started by a guy from Montana named Bob Biastock who the legend goes invented the receipt and guarded it for years before selling the recipe along with the business and moving back to Montana. We've pined away for this stuff ever since we left Alaska. We've seen similar cheeses but...it just ain't the same. 

So the other day at the gym I was telling a new friend that we were going to Butte for lunch at Pork Chop John's and to buy Truzzilini Tamales....they know how to eat in Butte. He suggested we go to this place as he thinks it's the best Butcher Shop in Montana.

Western Meat Block on Dewey Street has got the goods ! Wonderful store made sausage and 7 different types of bacon. Gourmet cheeses and seafood etc. So we bought the ' original ' sausages, Sweet Bourbon bacon and a couple of Tamales and then it happened....in a smaller cooler case I spotted this .

At Echo Lake Lockers Bob always had samples but yesterday we had to wait until we got home. MP hadn't been in door 5 minutes when it was open and she got out the chips. She looked at me and said ' do you suppose this could be it ' ? AND Yahtzee ....IT IS ! 

So , inspector Clueso here sees another trip to Butte in our future. I gotta find the origin of the recipe and who knows the trail may lead to Bob and maybe even an Echo Lake Montana reunion. Who knows ? But I'll tell ya this my FootBall Sunday just got way better.