Hi. It's always good to hear from home when the news is good. As for me, I had a fun weekend. Friday night I went to a cool party. But Saturday night was the best. I went camping and, I swear, if there was anyone watching, I probably looked like a pro. I loaded up my pack and hopped on my bike around 4:35 yesterday and then biked somewhere around 5-7 miles south out of town. There's a small campsite next to the town Hills that's free and right next to the river. So it takes me about 45 minutes to bike down there. Usually it's only about a 25-minute ride, but the weight in my pack and the headwind slowed me down quite a bit. So when I got there, it was about 5:20. I wanted to go fishing right away (I had brought along that telescoping pole Dad gave me and some minimal fishing gear), but then I realized: work before play. So I first set up my tent. That took me about 5 minutes. Then I began looking for wood. I gathered up a good pile of small dead stuff from the ground, but I didn't have any good sized pieces. That was when I noticed a large dead branch hanging up in a tree that was next to another tree that had fallen down. (The fallen tree had already been stripped of anything of reasonable size.) So what do I do? I climbed up the tree, about 10 feet up, and grabbed a whole bunch of dead branches that had been caught up there. I felt pretty cool. After chucking down a good pile of dead branches, I got down from the tree with ease and hauled my pile back to camp. There I used my newly acquired hatchet to chop up the wood into about foot long pieces. Once I had a good pile ready to go, I finally allowed myself to go fishing. So I grabbed my pole and headed down to the stream. By this time the sun was just starting to set. I string up a yellow rooster tail on my line and cast out. On about the third or fourth cast, I actually caught a fish!! And not some puny fish either, this baby was about 11-12" long. I don't know what kind it was (probably a crappie), but I took a picture of it lying next to my knife so I could ask Dad later. Now here's where my professionalism breaks down for the first time. I have never caught a fish in a stream like this before, and I really didn't expect to. So I didn't have anything to put it in, but, dammit, I was determined to have that fish for supper. So I put away my fishing supplies, collapsed my pole and headed back to my tent. As I was heading back across the campground, someone actually comment, "Nice catch!" I got back to camp and found myself with my second spat of unprofessionalism: I have no idea how to clean a fish. I've seen Dad fillet a fish a million times, but I'm usually too busy taking the meat off the skin to really watch him closely. Luckily, the last time we went fishing together I asked him to show me how to do it and he roughly explained it. So I did my best. I think I would have done a heck of a lot better if my knife wouldn't have been so dull. (I was using Grandpa's old knife.) But after a murderous attempt on the first side of the fish, I was actually able to get a good sized fillet off the other side. I disposed of the rest of the fish (there were trash cans with lids) and washed the meet under the water pump they had at the campground. And when I say "water pump" I mean the kind you see in old movies where you have to pump the hand crank to get water. After washing up the meat, it was time to get the fire started. I gathered up a bunch of dry leaves and together with the twigs and wood I had gathered earlier, built a small (but adequate) fire. I had purposely wanted this camping experience to be a challenge, so I didn't bring wood matches, only those book matches with the cardboard handles. Anyway, on my first try I lit the fire and it took off. (Which is a step above anything I've ever seen Mr. Camper, Russ Dudley, pull off. Tee-hee.) Then I found a good stick and cooked my meat piece by piece over the fire. Boy, was that ever good, tender fish. After eating my fish, I went back down to the stream where I had seen some large pieces of driftwood earlier and hauled them back for the fire. I kept a good fire going for about 3 hours. Now, I'd like to say this was a "getting in touch with nature" type of camping, but it wasn't. Since the campsite is free, there was a bunch of slack-jawed yocals a few sites over that took away from the peacefulness. You know, the type of family that has a huge camper, radio blaring, an enormous fire, cars pulling in and out nonstop, and the matriarch constantly using the f-word to yell at her kids or their incessantly yipping dog. I don't know where the man of the family was, but I don't blame him for keeping quiet or not being there at all. So I wasn't able to "get in touch with nature", but it was still relaxing and a cool time just testing my survival skills. At about 10:30, my fire was growing dim and so I decided to turn in, but I probably didn't doze off until around midnight. The next morning I got up, rolled up my tent and loaded up my pack. I think it took me maybe 10-15 minutes to load up. Then I was back on the road again. It was a little easier biking back (probably the lack of headwind), and it only took me about 35 minutes. Anyway, that was my awesome Saturday night. It was incredibly relaxing and fun. Hope you guys have fun at Marv's party. Eric