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Thursday, June 4 - Burntside Lake to Fargo, North Dakota

Well, aren't I a typical American consumer. I'm sitting at bar in a "T.G.I. Friday's" restaurant in Fargo, watching a TV trivia game while I await arrival of my chicken quesadilla. At least I didn't order one of their new "pizzadillas." Criminy...

It's 9:30 and still light outside. Today's drive was short and pleasant. After leaving Burntside Lodge, I hiked loop around Bass Lake as planned, then headed down road to small town of Tower for a good sandwich at a local grill, where I chatted with bartender and a local outdoors guide.

Heading west across breadth of northern Minnesota, I was able to see landscape gradually change from wild northern woods (wolves and bears) to rolling agricultural prairie (herefords and coyotes). For me, this evolution in scenery is one of greatest pleasures of a road trip. The green hill country is dotted with small lakes and marshes, and land is groomed by plows except where thick groves of trees form boundaries between farms. Quite suddenly, about 20 miles from border with North Dakota, hills ended, and I found myself on Great Plains. I rolled into Fargo at sunset and found a place to stay on western edge of town. Fargo has a nice feel to it, as a prosperous, mid-sized, agricultural city on prairie. Out on highway trucks are hauling cattle feed, new tractors, and construction materials, giving place an aura of reality, of a strong connection to bedrock basics of life. I think that has been source of my attraction to agricultural areas. Or maybe I just love tractors.

Well, that doesn't happen very often. This guy next to me at bar has 250 head of beef cattle in western Minnesota and is in town for a farm equipment auction. We talked about tractors, hay crops, cattle breeds, and anything else farm-related. It was fun and somewhat refreshing; terms such as "second cutting" would have drawn blank stares from my coworkers back east.

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MILLIONAIRE STRIPERS Our weekend party boat pulled out from Wahweap Marina fully stocked with booze, beer, bait, and soon to be baked boatswains. We were pulling a pair of wave runners and a fishing boat through Colorado River channel. past buttes, bluffs, banks, spires, cathedrals, and towering monuments, kind you see at Bijou during a John Wayne/John Ford film festival.

Before pulling out of marina we power boated over to marina store to buy fishing licenses. There was a million dollar fish tournament going on at Lake, Powell, and we were determined to catch that rascal. We were informed that we had to have a fishing license for both Arizona and Utah, because Lake Powell shares borders of both states. We realized that we had Utah licenses but were fishing in Arizona waters.

PADRE POINT

It took a couple of hours to motor up and around Padre Point and Padre Bay and into Labyrinth Canyon, and across transparent state-line from Utah to Arizona. We were happy to moor in Labyrinth Canyon because a storm was brewing. "Scurvie" and his crew of motley maties buried four anchor lines in oxide red/orange powder sand, and then it was a round of cocktails as Cheetos and other snacks were busted out.

After storm blew over, sun came out in a radiant splash, and Janna, "Jet Boat Queen," was first out on water, blasting through narrow confines of Labyrinth Canyon to its terminus. Water-skiing and jet skiing is best in broad, calm waters of backwater bays, like Labrinth, but not in Colorado River main channel, Water safety rules of Utah and Arizona apply: 800 RIDE PWC — Utah; 602/774-5045 — Arizona.

Meanwhile, everyone else threw their gear into assigned bunks. That night Chef Boy-ar-dee "Scurvie" whipped together a cordon bleu salmon dinner fit for a five star table as sun set on Tower Butte, a ragged, decayed molar rising like a Pleistocene fossil out of plateau off our port side.

LET'S HAVE A RUM PUNCH

After a few more rum punches, it was a conversation of past adventure bragadoccio, yarns, and blarney. Everyone seemed to agree in appointing Scurvie galley swag for rest of trip, even though it was mainly hotdogs and sandwiches during day. But next night it was marinated steaks grilled on propane foredeck stove, with meat proving to be as tender as sandal soles. I didn't tell Scurvie I used my cut as fish bait. I think everyone else demoted him a Michellin star or two as well, but no one wanted to cook, so we continued to pump up his food finesse.

LAKE POWELL GOLF

The two teenage boys onboard, "Wild Bill" and "Wild Blakely," lost their imaged milion dollar fish prize poker hoards to Professor in a continuous game of Five Card Stud, reminiscent of Barbary Coast, with Professor's made-up rules.