Looking Out

I spent the last two days touring the Lake of the Ozarks area and trying to find the best lake lookouts. It was quite hazy, so the pictures aren't very good overall, but I still like some of them. The temperature got up to 99 degrees today, so walking miles in the woods trying to find the overlook made me very sweaty. The humidity must have been about 90 percent as well. But, it made me feel like an actual travel writer, enduring horrendous conditions to get the story.

The swinging bridge is over the Auglaize Creek. You can actually drive cars across it, though we didn't think that would be a good idea. It's a genuine swinging suspension bridge out in the middle of rural Ozark country.

Things I Do When I'm Alone:

Eat chocolate pudding straight out of the carton.
Play Nintendo for hours at a time.
Stare at my face in the mirror, trying to make sense of it.
Watch CNN.
Watch Audrey Hepburn movies and wish I was her.
Look up information about dogs on the American Kennel Club web site.
Make up little songs while I wash the dishes, usually on the syllable "da."

That's all I can think of that I care to share right now. What do you do when you're alone?

Heeeeeere trouty trouty trouty!

Missouri Adventures

Last Thursday I was introduced to the rainbow trout. Our meeting place was a stream off the Niangua River in Missouri. The time was 5:45 a.m. I wore green rubber waders four sizes too big with suspenders. The trout wore nothing. I tried my best to coax a trout onto my hook, but the trout were much too smart for me. Plus I don't know what I would have done if I'd have caught one--most likely run around trying to find someone willing to take it off the hook, by which time it would have been dead. Not that I have a lot of sympathy for trout, though they are smart and speedy. But they are cannibals. After a better fisherperson than me caught a trout, he cleaned it right there by the side of the stream and threw the guts into the water, where they were promptly carried off by other trout and devoured. Gross. I ate some trout too, for breakfast at 10:30. Yep, that's right. Fishing time lasted three and a half hours. I quit a teensy bit early and took pictures of the trout, since I couldn't catch any. Most of the people in the stream didn't seem to tire of trying to catch trout. They are still there now, in the dark, casting their lines over and over, muttering in low voices about how this time the trout will bite.