Travel

The Underground Travel Curse Strikes Again: Rubbing Salt In an Open Travel Wound

July 27, 2008, by Tom Chandler 10 comments

The L&T and I knew we were facing a long travel day home, but we didn’t figure it would end halfway.

Rather than snuggled warm in our own bed, the L&T and I are sitting in a hot, stuffy hotel room in Salt Lake City, sans luggage, food, and any sense of time or place.

The Underground Travel Curse strikes again.

Veteran Undergrounders will remember last year’s Maine return trip; we found ourselves stuck in Boston, holed up in a hotel room (a $400+ hotel room) for more than a day.

Given the current airline climate, I guess stranding us in Salt Lake City – which is, after all, farther west than Boston – constitutes real progress on the part of Delta Airlines. Yay, Delta!

My lower back is painfully aware of the fact that our 4.75 hour flight west found us rooted in our seats for better than eight hours, and I’m also pretty clear on the fact there are damned few trout at the Salt Lake City Airport Inn.

Thus, a New Underground Constitutional Amendment is born:

If I Can’t Drive To It, It Doesn’t Exist

More when my butt hurts less, and my eyes are open more.

See you where vertebrae go to die at the airport, Tom Chandler.

The Underground’s Heading For Home (More When I Get There)

July 26, 2008, by Tom Chandler 2 comments

West Grand Lake susnset

Early tomorrow morning, the L&T and I pack up, leave Grand Lake Stream, Maine, and head back to the Trout Underground/Man Cave World Headquarters in Mount Shasta.

Our stay in Grand Lake Stream, Maine has been big fun (and big calories), but the dialup access is so slow and spotty I’m not even trying to post anything until I get home.

The food has been awesome, the fishing sublime, and yes, the Wiffleball game went the way of the just and righteous Underground’s team, with yours truly representing big for the Underground Way of Life to the tune of a headfirst slide into home and a triple play.

More on my athletic (and eating) prowess after Sunday’s travel day, which likely won’t end until midnight, and that’s assuming our close, personal friends at the major airlines don’t strand us halfway.

One lobster, eaten

See you traveling, Tom Chandler.

Grand Lake Stream Fishing Day (And a Guide Secret Revealed)

July 23, 2008, by Tom Chandler 10 comments

It’s been a quiet day. The L&T and I gathered up Todd – family member and fly fisher – and ran uplake for a couple hours of smallmouth fishing.

We were interested in little more than knocking some of the dust off the gear, and – just like the guides suggested – we caught little smallmouth bass pretty much everywhere we went.

It wasn’t high drama, but it was damned fun.

Later, I snorkled around the dock and boathouse, shadowed by an 11″ smallmouth who clearly didn’t want any pasty white mammal competing for his territory (smallies are agressive).

Luckily, I survived my Brush with Jaws, only to face a larger jeopardy.

Tomorrow is a ostensibly a “big” fishing day – guides have been engaged and gear is being readied – but in truth, much of the drama there revolves around the traditional shore lunch.

Some think of the traditional shore lunch as a social event; something echoing back to a simpler time when even people who were fishing for real had time to relax and socialize a little in the middle of the day.

I know better.

The simple truth is this: the guides know that stuffing clients full of steak, potatoes and piece results in people too sleepy to fish.

Thus, the day ends early, and the tip is preserved.

Of course, having uncovered the Secret of the Guide Lunch, my life is jeopardy.

The Traditional Maine Guide Mafia – desperate to preserve their ugly little secret – would do almost anything to prevent the sprea

The Underground Touches Down In Maine (Finally)

July 21, 2008, by Tom Chandler 14 comments

Taking a fly fishing trip to Grand Lake Stream, Maine – the middle of nowhere in Maine – isn’t easy when your starting point is also the middle of nowhere, but at the opposite end of the USA.

Underground Headed to Big City: Attending CalTrout Fundraiser on Friday

May 7, 2008, by Tom Chandler 7 comments

Due to the largesse of a wealthy, anonymous benefactor, the Trout Underground’s Crack Writing Staff (me) and the Stunning L&T Nancy will be looming up the truck and heading to San Francisco for this Friday’s CalTrout Fundraiser:

You could say that San Francisco in general — and high-end Galas in particular — aren’t exactly my natural habitat.

In fact, if natural selection were truly in operation, I’d quickly come to a horrible end in the jaws of a predator better evolved to survive fundraisers, small talk and silent auctions.

Perhaps something like a Cocktail Crocodile.

Fortunately, where I clean up poorly and lack social graces, the L&T shines brightly. Very brightly.

It says a lot about my powers of persuasion that I ended up with dignified, attractive, intelligent woman who moves through these situations like a trout moves through water, and if I stick close enough, I might just survive the evening, eventually returning to the safety of my own natural habitat.

Darwin’s Cocktail Party

Curtis Knight of CalTrout thought I’d do just fine, and allowed as to how I’d do great as long as I kept bidding on auction items, which prompted me to laugh in a bitter, cynical way, wondering how many $10 auction items CalTrout was planning to move.

He made a classic error; just because I married a hot babe and own some nice bamboo fly rods, it doesn’t mean I’ve got any money.

Should any Undergrounders plan to attend, be sure to look me up. (And yes, it’s for a good cause, so drag your butts out there — at the very least, we’ll provide multiple targets for predators, achieving some kind of safety in numbers.)

Simply search for a species who clearly didn’t evolve in the Four Seasons Hotel ecosystem — an environment where people wear neckties every day without knowing it’s wrong.

That’ll be me, likely wearing a sport coat without zingers and shoes without felt soles, scanning the room for predators.

See you at the ~~Galapagos Island Cocktail Party~~ CalTrout Fundraiser, Tom Chandler.

Technorati Tags: caltrout,social darwinism,fish out of water

More Baja Fly Fishing Goodness: An Article about Dan Blanton

August 1, 2007, by Tom Chandler No comments yet

Baja has become a popular fly fishing destination, though it wasn’t always that way. Dan Blanton recalls what it was like before Baja was cool…

Blogging From Beantown: The Underground Stranded Again

July 30, 2007, by Tom Chandler 4 comments

Seasoned Underground readers know that I travel about as well as your average fresh-caught trout. I’m lively for a little while, then I become glassy-eyed, my color fades, and finally, brain function ceases entirely.

As far as this trip goes, I’m well past the glassy-eyed stage (and starting to smell a little), and while Boston isn’t a bad place, it’s not exactly rich in trout streams, and I sure as hell didn’t want to spend the night in a hotel room that cost more than your average guide trip.

Yet that’s the reality imposed on us (yet again) by my close personal friends at Delta ~~Circus and~~ Airlines, who got us from Bangor to Boston exactly 25 minutes too late to make our connecting flight.

Of course, that’s when you run headlong into the truly Twilight-Zonish reality of modern air travel, where every flight is filled, yet all the airlines are somehow losing money. Read more →

Forget Fly Fishing; The Underground Goes for Weight

July 26, 2007, by Tom Chandler 11 comments

Vacationing fly fishermen often agonize over concepts like the balance of big fish to numbers of fish, or time spent on the water versus time spent with the family.

Frankly, I’ve moved far beyond those pedestrian concerns, and over the last two days, I’ve wholly abandoned any pretense about fishing, focusing instead on what has clearly become this trip’s goal: Weight Gain.

Rasberry Pie -- enough to make you forget about fly fishing?
Will Raspberry Pie doom fly fishing as we know it?

On past trips, my most common refrain was “just one more cast.” Now it’s more likely to be “just one more piece,” and I’m not letting anyone badger me into leaving ~~the table~~ early, if you get my drift. Read more →

The Grand Lake Day Out: Shore Lunch

July 22, 2007, by Tom Chandler 5 comments

If I’m not keeping up with the fishing reports, it’s because I’m fishing. (No, I don’t feel bad about it.) And while the fishing is slowing a bit, the stream of experiences hasn’t.

Grand Lake Canoes dot the beach at the Big Shore Lunch
A fleet of Grand Lakers wait while eat our shore lunch.

Saturday was a Big Day Out for the family members that were piling up at the camp like cordwood. Traditionally, the L&T Nancy’s mother (Judy) hires a couple of guides, we pile everyone into the guides’ Grand Lake Canoes, and off we go. Read more →

The Two-Headed Fly Fishing Vacationer

July 17, 2007, by Tom Chandler 3 comments

Combining fly fishing and a vacation can force choices on you that perhaps you’d rather not make. Fly fish for landlocked Atlantic salmon? Smallmouth? Or just relax with the L&T Nancy?