Vacation Return

We’re backkkk!

As you can see, I caught at least one monster bass! The pictured fish, of course, is the minnow that I used to catch the monster bass, which would not fit in to the frame of the photo.

Actually, I didn’t have much fishing luck. I caught two small ones. The pictured one is by far the biggest of the two. I did, however, have some fishing “fun.” It was enjoyable to slip my way around the lake, fishing from small cove to small cove with hopes high. Lana often accompanied me and I’m sure she’ll show you some of the great photos that she got, including delightful pics of some Canadian goose chicks, and lots of herons and egrets.

It was unfortunately hot during the middle of the days so we tended to nap at those times and get out during the morning and evening hours. We saw lots of interesting plant life and in a night walk I saw many hundreds of fireflies, a sight I haven’t seen since childhood. We also visited the park’s deer research facility where we saw many ear-tagged whitetails.

I didn’t do any writing during the trip, but I read a lot, including The Saga of Swamp Thing by Alan Moore, a Star Trek novel called “Time for Yesterday” by A. C. Crispin, and The Force, a 1987 horror novel by a friend of mine named John Edward Ames. The Swamp thing piece was interesting but I felt it was fairly flawed. I very much enjoyed the Star Trek book, which was a sequel to Crispin’s Yesterday’s Son. That book introduced Spock’s son, who had been born without Spock’s knowledge in the past, after the events of the very last original Trek Episode, “All Our Yesterdays.” I also enjoyed The Force, which took me back to those enjoyable days of 1980s horror.

Another book I started reading was The Lost Notebooks of Loren Eiseley. Eiseley, who is dead now, was my favorite nature writer. He viewed nature with both the eyes of a scientist and a poet, and it was an effective combination. Eiseley was a compulsive writer and note taker but didn’t have his first book published until he was fifty years old. I found that inspirational and it’s renewed my commitment to my own writing. I plan to dedicate this summer to writing and reading, and that may mean somewhat less blogging. But I’m not giving up blogging and will be visiting blogs again starting today. Writing must again become my focus, though.

A final thing I realized is that I’m very lucky to have most of the things I want right here in my house. It’s good to be home.

Now, I'm off to make my blogging rounds. I got a big kick out of the comments on my last post, and I must single Wil out for most creative response to my vacation. I better check there first to make sure he's still alive!

By the way, I just checked Google Reader and found 407 posts. No way I'll be able to catch up with all of those so I'll have to just pick up from today. Sorry about that, but I don't want to die of finger cramps.

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