Young Montana Skier

Would you believe that here in Whitefish, MT, you will see young skiers beginning as early as three years old! What could you do at three years old? I even heard one kid, who had to be less than five, yell at his skiing buddy "you ski like a two year old"; it can sure be depressing when you are passed on the slopes by three or four kids, all of whom are under five years old; they are fearless, not afraid of falling, having great fun and not too worried about their "form"; of course, when they do fall, they do not have far to go; you will see these youngsters getting trained by instructors and parents; a hula hoop might be used to corral the young skier, sometimes a rope to control them, sometimes kid will literally be skiing between feet of parents, with parents holding them up; often you will see a "worm" on their skis, which is a way of tying the front of the skis close together, so that kid is always in a somewhat "snow plow" position, which prevents them from going too fast; it is absolutely amazing, fascinating and inspiring to watch all these youngsters skiing and snow boarding

Back after more than one year

My previous post on this blog was in March 2011, more than a year ago; have been traveling, just not blogging; went out west again and cycled back through Panama City Beach area; thought I would begin again by posting pictures, with maybe some verbiage; hope to do better job in future!



Mexico Beach, FL; dog friendly beach; almost two miles long, very deserted; Riley runs and swims off leash; this branch is little too big for him to carry off!

Squiddy Adventures

Welcome back to my blog! After staying out west for a while, spent some time in TX, MS, Red Top Mountain State Park on Lake Allatoona north of Atlanta, Savannah and am now in Panama City Beach, FL; my good friends Capt Pete and Tish Wodraska live here, when they are not spending time in their beautiful NC mountain cabin; Pete and I (mostly Pete, I must honestly confess) have caught about 250 squid (calamari) over the last three nights; we caught 114 last night in only about an hour; Pete is good cook and he cooked up squid appetizers, squid linguine and fried squid --- all very delicious! The squid are about 4-6

inches long, perfect size for great eating;

we will probably go after some more

before they head out to deeper water ;

you use a jig specifically designed for

snatching these squid; they come in

schools and will literally attack the jig;

it does take some time to prepare them for cooking, but it is definitely worth it, particularly when Pete does most of the cleaning! BEWARE! If you want to try this, wear clothes you do not care much about; you are going to get shot with jet black squid ink and they can "spit" a long way! Keep in touch and let me know what is happening in places where I am not; Spring break has just begun here in PCB; the people and traffic are increasing daily; you have to pick and choose where you want to go and when you want to go there

Not as big as it looks, but probably close to 6 inches

Thoughts, Musings, Opinions, etc

• The entire country seems to be under repair or construction
• Speed limits might as well be "speed suggestions"
• I found best and most polite drivers in MT and WA, worst and rudest in TX
• The whole world is in a hurry, particularly drivers
• The Indians had it right in the first place
• Distances in the west are much different than the east
• People in MN really do talk that way
• You cannot pump your own gas in OR
• In Seattle, it usually is about noon before you know if it is going to be a sunny day
• Everybody seems to own some type of RV
• RVers are very nice and helpful
• South FL is no place to be during tourist season
• The wind never stops blowing in TX and OK
• Huckleberry ice cream is delicious
• People pay more attention to Riley than me
• Always buy your third RV first
• If something can happen on an RV, eventually it will
• European travelers really do go for "smaller" when it comes to RVs, unlike us Americans

Pics from Washington Olympic Peninsula Area

Trip Comes Full Circle

After traveling about 15 months and probably six or seven thousand miles, my trip has returned to its starting point; as you can see, Panama City Beach, FL is pretty deserted in mid-November; this is me and my good friend Tish hard at work one beautiful day; I am the ugly one! The beach area is adjacent to St Andrews State Park, where I was camped; no oil here, but even so, tourism has really been hurt

Dreaded Sign

This was the most common sign I saw as I traveled around the USA; the entire country road system is under repair or construction, particularly freeways; some of the freeway road surfaces are terrible, enough to shake by TV in my Teton loose as I went down the road; I must have seen thousands of these signs