Camerasutra

And on Thursday they rested.  We did a little fishing, a little eating, some drinking, a touch of swimming and a whole lot of laying around not doing much.  I must say it was the perfect day.

This morning we drove back down to Atlanta to pick up Tyler and Kristen from the airport.  We extended an invite to a few folks from Colorado to join us on our trip, but they were the only ones who took that bait.  Tyler is an avid fisherman, so he has been foaming at the mouth everytime we talk about this trip.

We met my folks at their Remax Real Estate office for lunch.   They took us to a traditional Southern Food greasy spoon around the corner from their office that is run by a group of Asians.  Where they learned to make Southern food this well is a mystery, but they are doing it as well as anyone I’ve met.  I had the cucumber salad, fried green tomatoes and fried okra.  Mom and Dad had the same, but substituted the cucumbers for country fried steak.  It was a culinary expression in brown.

It is amazing that the first thing most people see when they visit Atlanta is the rapid transit system called MARTA.  Earlier this week we rode the rails with the pessimistic pimp and then today as we were picking up Tyler and Kristin, we witnessed some poor guy getting group tackled by Atlanta’s finest.  Welcome to Atlanta guys!

After grabbing some lunch for Tyler and Kristin, we ran a few errands and were back on the road towards the lake.  We promised them a surprise on the way and delivered on that surprise in the form of soft boiled peanuts.  With a healthy dose of skepticism, they each took a steaming legume, chewed with caution, and beamed with delight.  Another group of surprised boild peanut fans.

Today we drove up to Asheville, North Carolina.  I have heard great things about this town and figure that if I ever move back to the South, this is one of the places I would probably enjoy living.  They have hiking, climbing, mountain biking and Obama bumper stickers.

I will say one thing about Asheville, they have great food.  We ate at a little place downtown called the Tupelo Honey Cafe.  It was nice to eat in humidity again.  Jess took in some of the local culture by ordering a side of cheese grits.  Her favorite part of the meal…the cheese grits.

We wanted to do a bit of walking around in the Arboretum, but the torential downpour of rain had us quickly looking for Plan B.  Instead, we went to the North Carlina Farmer’s Market.   For someone who loves veggies and produce more than dessert, I might as well have been in a candy shop.  We brought home some tomatoes, silver queen corn, bread and butter pickled jalapenos and vidalia onions.

The drive back to the lake was gorgeous.  If you’ve ever wondered why they call them the Great Smoky Mountains, just hang around long enough for some rain.  After a summer storm, the clouds hang low in the mountains and make for some pretty amazing photographic opportunities.  I pulled over and seized a couple.

If you’re going to suffer from a case of the Mondays, there is no better place to have them than at Lake Burton.  In an effort to get rid of a fairly serious case of the Mondays, we chose to do a good deal of nothing for most of the day.  Jess sat under the partly sunny sky and finished another book, while I relaxed with my compter and did some work.  While it would have been nice not to have to work at all, sitting on the dock at the lake with a cold beer is not a bad place to work from.

Later in the afternoon we worked up the motivation to do some swimming.  I did the equivalent of four laps in a pool before I had to pull myself onto the dock and beg my body for forgiveness.  Jess tripled my efforts and certainly could have done more.  We agreed that if we ever live on a lake, we’ll start every day with a morning swim….weather permitting, of course.

Since I so rarely get to see my family together, it was a real treat to have a family BBQ today at my folks place.  Amy, Alan, Scott and Aunt Joyce all came over for a great meal.  It was so good to see everyone and all sit around the same table.  I do love living out West, but I certainly miss being able to get together like this.

Since I was last in Atlanta, my folks added a new pet to the family.  The new pet, whose name is Beau, is a mix between a Shit-zu and a Yorkie.  While there is no official breed name for these dogs, my dad has had a field day coming up with some of his own.  My personal favorites are Shitkie and Shitshire Terrier.  That just sounds better than a Yorzu.  Whateve you choose to call it, you cannot deny its a cute little shit(kie).

For our final family event of the summer, Jess and I headed to Atlanta to see my family and spend some time relaxing at Lake Burton.  The last time Jess came to Atlanta, we made it up to the lake, but it was fire-building weather.  We were looking forward to getting there when we could do some sunning and swimming.

After a long day of travel (due to a connection in Milwaukee), we finally arrived in Atlanta about 7pm.  On our MARTA ride to my folks house, we sat next to an angry, pessimistic pimp.  The girl sitting in the path of his rant made the mistake of nodding and saying, “yeah, you know that’s right” to his proclamations of “looking out for #1″, and immediately found herself to be the center of his recruiting efforts.  When his lady friend (or employee) found out she was from New Mexico, she expressed her love of that area by saying, “oh yeah…its beautiful there!  They got beaches and everythang….”  I have some ocean front property in Arizona that I’m thinking about selling to her.

For dinner we went to the Mexican restaurant in my parents’ neighborhood.  As we approached the door, we noticed a sign that said they had temporarily lost their liquor license.  This explained why nobody was inside.  As we turned to go elsewhere, the owner chased us to our car and assured us that we could drink, he’d just have to give it to us in plain red cups.  Giant, red cups would have been a more apt description.  In hindsight, when you’re tasked with drinking a full liter of margarita, don’t ask for extra shots…it will quickly bring your day to a close.

After a harty breakfast at Hart Ranch, we all put on our best Sunday clothes and headed North to see Rebecca and John wed.  We spent most of the time in the car belly aching about Catholic weddings and did our best to focus on getting to the best part…the reception.  I made a comment about how miserable it must be to be the videographer at a Catholic wedding and was instantly rewarded by Jess’s other cousin asking me if I wouldn’t mind taping the wedding.  Of course it would be my pleasure.  As I’m wielding the video camera around from the front row, Jess points out the bolded line in the program thanking people for not taking photographs during the sacred ceremony.  I spent a good portion of the wedding just asking for forgiveness.  I just hope I don’t burn in hell for being put in charge of audio visuals.  If I don’t make it in for that one, I might make it in for stepping on the bride’s train while they were running from the church.  See if you can guess which photo I was taking below as people reacted to this blunder.  Sorry Rebecca!

Based on my experience at the previous May family wedding reception, I knew this was going to be a fun crew to party with.  It is tough always being right, especially when it involves this much partying.  I should have learned my lesson by now that you never party with an Australian, but low and behold, I found myself partying with Jess’s Australian cousin.  He is philosophically opposed to anyone’s drink being anywhere close to empty.  We went through the drill of filling and emptying our glasses many, many times.  I’ve decided that if you can party alongside Australians, you are equipped to party alongside just about anyone in the world.

On the way home we stopped for snacks and water.  This was a great idea in theory, but next time I think we’ll send someone else in to do the buying.  Apparently I referred to the attendants as “people from the future”, put the handful of change that I received into my mouth, and told the attendant named Stacey that I would forever refer to him as Stancey (because it sounds more manly).  This is one Loaf n’ Jug that I won’t be invited back to….

Hangovers and bellyaches aside, the wedding weekend was wonderful.  I always love hanging out with Jess’s family and I’m happy to have met so many more of them.  Despite my antics, they seem to accept me as one of their own and are comfortable giving me plenty of crap.  This is a good sign.

Jess and I headed up to South Dakota this weekend with her brother Tyler and sister-in-law Kristin for some good old fashioned marrying.  Her cousin was getting married to her future cousin-in-law and we were invited to the party.  This was good because it gave me a chance to experience the legend of Hart Ranch.  Hart Ranch is the RV Resort where all of Jess’s aunts and uncles go each summer to hang out and drink Miller Lite and tomato juice.  I got to see everyone again that I had previously met at Tyler and Kristin’s wedding, plus several more.  You’d have a tough time finding a more fun group to play Balls On A String with.  While its tough to drive that far and then lose at  your own game, I think I handled the loss with dignity.

Its been an amazing blessing having both of my siblings in town this month.  I can’t wait to do it again next summer.  My homework before next summer is to find some good fishing holes where we can actually land a fish for the blog.  Try as we did, we’re yet to actually pull one of those stinkers out of the stream and in front of the lens.  I guess if you’re dying to see some pretty fish, you can go here.  Otherwise, I can offer a few pictures of Scott beating me at putt putt on his final night in town.

Today we finally got out for a real day of fishing.  We woke up earlier and drove back up to the same area where we’ve been wanting to fish on The Big Thompson river outside of Estes Park.  I had no idea that this was so close, but it only takes about 40-45 minutes from my front door.

It doesn’t take much fly fishing to realize why people love it so much.  Scott has been such a great fly casting instructor and its enabled me to get out there and start fishing pretty much from the word go.  In my short time fly fishing, I’ve realized that casting is only one small part of the equation.  You need to be able to cast, to choose the right fly, to drift it properly, and most importantly, you need to be able to hook the fish.  Scott and I both got several bites throughout the day, but these Big Thompson fish are well trained…you’ve gotta be good to get the hook set in their mouth.

In the end we had an amazing day of fishing, but failed to bring any fish back to the camera.  I’m definitely sold on the sport though and can’t wait to get back in the water for more.