Latest Update: July 3, 2001 by Ben Marcus

16:37 TUESDAY, JULY 3 2001 NATURE CONSERVANCY BUILDING AT SILVER CREEK

MONEY
More flies at Silver Creek store:
Recharge the phone card: $27
Nature Conservancy donation: $ 5
Gasoline at Hailey 66: $
Smoked salmon: $30

This is pleasant. I am listening to the birds chirp and the bees buzz and the insects click and the rattlesnakes rattle from the shadowed porch of a Nature Conservancy building overlooking the Silver Creek nature preserve. There are jets flying in and out of Hailey up the valley. There are John Ford clouds scudding from west to east. There is a mourning dove making noise, and lots of birds chirping. I'm listening for Ike's collar to make noise and wondering about the wisdom and legality of letting such a Natural Born Killer wander around a nature preserve.

There is no one around. The guy manning the booth chatted for a while about earthquakes and Adam West and fishing and Humboldt State and other things, but then he left. He, too, goes camping with his cat, so I didn't feel so bad.

It is too hot to fish. There's no reason to bother because Silver Creek is hard under the best of conditions and mid-day is not the best of conditions. I may come back here tonight or tomorrow morning when the hatch is on. For now I've been organizing all my photo floppy discs, waiting for Ike and updating this.

The drive back from Boise was uneventful, except that I flew because I had my new tires on and I was fearless. After typing at Kinkos-where I met a family of educational performers who had been on the road for 12 years-I drove around the endless shopping mall, buying a new power inverter at ??? and trying to buy a cigarette lighter adaptor at the Gateway Country Store. I also bought new boxes of floppy discs to use in the digital camera, because I ran out. I also bought some plastic boxes for organizing and storing all the discs I've used, which is about 160 by now.

I wanted to buy tickets to True West when I passed through Hailey on the way back, but the box office was closed. I was tempted to stop in Sun Valley for dinner or a beer or something, but pushed on because I was worried about Ike. I saw another fox cross the road less than a quarter mile from the camp site, so I was glad that Ike was there when I pulled up. He's a good cat, most of the time. Wonder how he would go against a fox?

Slept okay with Bessie by my side. Woke up and headed into town. I had the guys at Silver Creek switch the fly line from the old reel to the new one that Jeff gave me, and I also bought some recommended flies for Silver Creek. I called a woman named Leah Butler at Smith and asked if I could buy some good sunglasses from her to give away as presents. I'm not going to Russia but I'm going to other places, and it's nice to have presents.

The Newslink CafÚ was open so I went to check e-mail. Not much happening, although I did see an article on a Russian jet that had crashed in Siberia, killing 143. I took that as a sign.

I surfed the web to find as many e-mail addresses for surf magazines around the world, and sent all of them a copy of the Jay Moriarity Memorial, hoping they will run it. I want to get back to Sun Valley to see if I got any hits. It's 5:00 now and the place closes at 6:00, to I better get going. Where is Ike, dangit.

After checking e-mail and making phone calls in town, I went back to camp and jumped in the creek for a bathe and a shampoo. I grabbed Ike, drove into town, checked e-mail again and then drove toward Hailey. I had two goals: One was to order some smoked salmon and trout from a local smokehouse. After driving from California to Alaska and back again, I finally found a place as good as Creekside Smokehouse in El Granada. I had bought some peppered, cold-smoked salmon at the super market in Ketchum, and it was so good I decided to track down the source. The three women who work hard in there were very nice, and let me take some photos. It is a clean, well-lighted place they work in and produce four kinds of smoked salmon and trout, peppered and plain. When I was there they were preparing a big rack of farm-raised trout fillets for the smoker. I ordered a delivery for someone that will be there next Wednesday. They offered me a free package and I took the peppered trout. I took some photos and told them I would pitch some magazines about their operation. They all came outside to see Ike.

I tried to buy tickets to True West but they're sold out until the 7th. I figured, "Duh, it's the 3rd of July, all the big shots coming into town are going to want to see Bruce Willis."

Driving out of Hailey I passed the airport and saw one private jet taking off and another arriving. By tomorrow that airport is going to probably have a half a billion dollars worth of prime Gulfstream parked on the tarmac. The ladies at the salmon smokehouse said that Tom Hanks and Arnold Schwarzenegger had all moved to Sun Valley to raise their kids. Good on em, I thought.

Then I drove on to Silver Creek, found the turn-off after calling the fly shop and here I am. There is a field of irrigated barely over to my right that is going to Coors. Apparently this is a prime growing area for Coors barely.

Ike just showed up, so I'd better grab him and get going. I'll spend 4th of July fishing Silver Creek in the morning and then watching the Hailey fireworks at night. On the 5th I'm heading north by way of Challis, on up to Salmon and into Montana.

23:35 MT TUESDAY, JULY 3, 2001 JUST BACK FROM TOWN, BYT THE CREEK

ODOMETER: 56645
TRIP METER: 2567.8

MONEY
Wine and artichoke at Pioneer Saloon:
Buffalo burger at Pioneer Saloon:

Oops, I did it again. Ate too much animal matter and trimmings, and now I'm stuffed. I couldn't eat another bite. What's that? One thin wafer? Merci beaucoup.

I am stuffed full of wine and coke and water and bread and rice and artichoke and buffalo burger, and I don't feel too good. I don't think I'll explode., although Sun Valley was just doing its fireworks early, because tomorrow night is an ice show starring Katarina Witt-and she is the Bomb.

Had dinner at the Pioneer Saloon, looking for a friend of George Nikitin's. "Tell the owner that we met in boats at the Hollister Ranch," George said. "His name is Duffy." So that was my goal tonight, check out the Pioneer Saloon, have dinner and find Duffy.

Lou Reed is on the radio right now. Take a Walk on the Wild Side.

I went to the Pioneer Saloon after driving back from Silver Creek at a nice clip. I took the dirt road out of the place and tried to find places to fish. Silver Creek is different from Big Wood of Warm Springs. It is a spring-fed creek with lots of grass and algae. I saw some people fishing it from a canoe, and I think that would be the way to go.

I saw one little creek with a bunch of scurrying fish that would be fun to wade, but it doesn't look like a wadeable river. I guess I'll find out tomorrow.

Driving back, I patted myself on the back for the "John Ford clouds" line in the previous post. They just had that Wild West look to them, large, dignified clouds moving through a clear, blue sky, over a landscape that is either dry as a bone or lush with green grass and alfalfa and barley.

Drove through Bellevue and Hailey, hoping to make it to Ketchum in time to check my e-mail and see if there were any death threats or magazines wanting to buy my Jay story or word from the Alaska guy or a dozen other things.
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That was Ike. Sorry. Now it's Peter Gabriel. Big time. Could be the funkiest Englishman since David Bowie.

I'm falling asleep.

Ike keeps jumping up into the driver's side window in the dark and scaring the crap out of me.

When I got to Ketchum the Newslink CafÚ was closed, so I had to go without. I drove back to the campsite with the sun going down and the air cooling off and the river flowing on past. Apparently Idaho is in the middle of a record drought. At least that's what the guy at the Nature Conservancy told me. They're in the second year of drought and there is a possibility that all the reservoirs are going to run dry, he said. I strongly doubt that the McKay reservoir is going to run out. Seemed healthy to me when I went past it on the way here.

This weather makes me wonder about the poor dingalings on the Oregon Trail who passed this way in the middle of summer. It's unpleasant enough in an air-conditioned car. In a covered wagon, trundling along at 3 MPH in the middle of the desert in 100 degree heat. Makes you wonder how many of the Oregon Trailers died from heat exhaustion.

Now it's Neil Young. "Old Man." Good stuff. This is a local Ketchum station and like everything else around here, it has class and taste.

Geez, I'm tired. Buffalo always has this effect on me. How about you? I'm as stuff as all the animals the ghoulishly line the walls of the Pioneer Saloon. (A moth just went down my shirt. I can't get it out.)

Now it's Steve Miller, a Ketchum resident.

Where was I? Fishing. I let Ike out to run and I went fishing. Downstream this time, armed with my new reel, and a brand new 6X tippet. I tied on a grass-hopper pattern that I bought for Silver Creek and caught my first fish pretty quick. This one had a bit of size and moved me out of the medium range and into the decent range. This thing might have been 12 inches and it had some girth.

It fought like a tiger, as usual, and as I was landing it I tried to take a photo. That was hard to do, because the fish kept flipping about and yowling and I should have been hurrying to release it and not photograph it. There was a sign at the Nature Conservancy showing how to release a fish properly. You should leave it in the water, touch it as little as possible, never touch the gills and hold it downstream for a while to get its gills working and oxygen flowing.

I'd been hauling my fish up in the air and handling them up high, which is like trying to catch Ike sometimes, because they flop around a lot and are very hard to hold onto.

I wanted to do this one right, and I tried to take a photo as he came in but he was camera shy and flopped out of the way. He threw the hook when he did that, which was nice of him, so I held him in the water for a few seconds to jump start him, and off he went. It's an interesting illusion to watch a trough swim off into the rocks. Within a few seconds they are camouflaged and gone, disappearing into the rocks. Natural selection at work.

I kept moving downstream which was wrong because I was kicking up dirt and the fish could probably smell Ike on my clothes. I caught one more small trout on a grass-hopper pattern I'd bought at Silver Creek, and then called it a day. Fishing by yourself is like surfing by yourself: It's more fun with one or two others.

After fishing I took a bathe in the river, washed off the sweat and grime and felt much better I put on a clean shirt, grabbed Ike and headed into town.

Called Leah Butler at home to see if I could talk her out of some expensive Smith Optic sunglasses to give away as presents, but she didn't bite. Went to Andy Gilbert's house to get Jeff G's hat. They weren't there but their cat was and the door was open. I grabbed the hat and tried to introduce Ike to their cat. Ike hissed at the friendly orange and white cat, and I felt bad.

Then I went to the Pioneer Saloon, which was packed with Fourth of July crowds. The waitresses were very friendly and everyone was smiling, perhaps sincerely, and I asked the hostess if she knew Duffy. "He's my uncle," she said. But he wasn't working. I had a cold artichoke and a glass of wine while I waited and checked out all the old guns and ammunition displays and the heads of all the moose and elk and antelope and other poor defenseless animals that lined the walls. The head of the buffalo was impressive. That is a large, dignified animal. If I ever have property up here, I'd love to get a couple of buffalo cubs and raise them to full strength. Buffalo look good in a field, but I wonder how much room they need.

Finally there was a seat for me and I ordered: A buffalo burger. It was good. There was an older couple near me and I was certain the man was Hobie Alter. I tried to get up the nerve to ask him and even flicked my pen on the ground to start a conversation. Didn't work.

The buffalo burger was good, but I felt sorry for the animal who gave his all.

There were three business-types at another table talking loudly about CEO's and "branding" and all that android crap. They also complained about everything and I felt sorry for the waiter, who was my waiter, who reminded me of Noah Johnson. At one point, after complaint Number Four, I called the waiter over and said, "Excuse me, my lettuce isn't green enough. Could you take it back to the chef?" And he smiled quietly to himself.

On the Pioneer Saloon there is a little story about a certain fish that is stuffed up on the wall, a story that filled in another corner of my brain. A Ketchum resident named Clay Carter was fishing the Kispiox River in B.C. when he landed a monster steelhead. He took measurements and lots of photos and when it was all sorted out, he had a monster-a 37 pound steelhead, which is an absolute mutant and I can only imagine what that thing felt like when it hit. He didn't keep the fish and lost the chance to claim the record but earned the undying respect of the fishing world. A reproduction of the fish was up on the wall. Holy shit. Did he catch that pig on a fly? With what kind of rod?

Anyway, I finished my buffalo burger and asked the Hobie Alter guy as I was leaving. It wasn't him.

Then I drove home and fell asleep writing this.

Now it's the Fourth of July and I'm heading into town to take care of bidness and clean the van and clothes and get ready to head out of town.