On the Road Report and Photo Essay

On the Road Report

Thank you for reading this On the Road Report. Although I’ve seen and talked to plenty of fishermen the past couple of days, no fishing was done by this reporter this week. I write this from northwestern Michigan, where the coho salmon are being eagerly awaited by men with fishing rods!

A lot has happened since my last report. I had a birthday, got out of the Florida heat by driving halfway across the country, saw an old friend and colleague, and am enjoying the change of temperature and the coming of autumn. The leaves are starting to change color here!

Our stops included Lake Tobesofkee Recreation Area, Macon, Georgia, one night; Mammoth Cave National Park, Kentucky, 2 nights; Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, Indiana, two nights; and Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, where we will spend our third night this evening. Then it’s off to… the next place!

Lake Tobesofkee was pleasant. Saw some folks fishing but didn’t talk to any of them. At Mammoth Cave we chickened out of the tour when the guide said there were 180 steps at the end. Didn’t know if I have that much steppage left in my lungs. If it were just us, I may have tried it. But there were about 30 people on the tour. The part of the cave we saw was huge, but underwhelming. We’ve been to Carlsbad Caverns…

Kayakers on the muskie-holding Green River.

Indiana Dunes was pleasant as well. It’s squished between some industrial areas around Gary, with Chicago visible across Lake Michigan. It was nice to relax a bit after all that time on the interstate highway system, though!

Jetski on Lake Michigan. Chicago across the lake.

Where we are now, around Franfort, is beautiful, reminding us very much of New England. Except for the enormous lake that’s here! Lots of farmer’s stands along the road, with apples, pears, plums, peaches, squashes, and etc. fresh from the fields/orchards.

A dog and his man. Alan Marble and one of his dogs.

We visited with Alan Marble yesterday. Alan and I worked together at Fishing Bear Lodge in Alaska for a season. He’s one of the nicest people you’d ever meet, just a gem. It was great to see him and catch up a bit.

The fishermen are not busy hauling in fish.

We’re camped at the Platte River Campground. The Platte River is where the inaugural stocking of Great Lakes coho salmon happened, back in the 1960s, with fish hatched from eggs purchased from Oregon. Now the Great Lakes are full of salmon, and the fishermen have responded! So far this year’s run has been light. People are waiting for the weather (which has been spectacular) to turn snotty so the fish enter the river in force. We’ll be leaving here tomorrow morning, so we’ll miss it, but I’m not much of one for combat fishing anyway.