Quiet Week

Jane Holtan and her HUGE Silver Salmon!

Actually it's really been busy, too busy to even write this week's post  on time but yet it's been awfully quiet around.  The weather has cooled down and it looks like it will be raining this weekend so time to get some of the things done around the house as well, get my boat ready for the next excursion to Lac Seul in 4 weeks.  The Ranger still has some work to be taken car of since a number of afflictions came upon it, namely the theft of my electronics where they destroyed the plastic panels as well my hydraulic steering still needs some adjustment.  The boat will go back to Frankie's on Monday where they can work on all of these issues and hopefully get her back like new before September 20th when we head up to Chamberlain Narrows.  I finally had lunch with Mike Worms and got him my old Ipod for his boat.  I am still struggling with getting my new 128 GB Ipod up and running but there are people at work who are smarter than me (and younger) who can help in this regard.  Because I don't have any latest and greatest pictures of me, I will defer to my friend Keith Holtan and the picture of his wife Jane holding an enormous silver salmon that she caught in the Kenai River last week.  I can tell that Keith has instructed Jane on the finer points of fish photography however even though you can do those things to make a fish look big, this is a big salmon.  Tricks of the trade are to hide your hands so as not to have a clear reference to the size, she does this very well, however the other is to hold it out a ways from your body and I suspect this fish is easily over 16 pounds (I let Keith comment!) so unless Jane has been lifting weights on her days off, I am pretty impressed! Of course my friends and Cousin Mark that are in Alaska keep sending these teases, maybe I'll just have to make one more trip next year, 2018 is an even year and the humpy's will be in.  Definitely food for thought!

So one thing we did last week was Lory Brasel and I went to Brainerd with our friend Kevin Sonsalla for our annual trip to BIR (Brainerd International Raceway) and the NHRA's stop on the National Drag Racing Circuit.  It is always a fun time unfortunately rain put a damper on most of the racing however we did get in a few ear shattering runs. Brainerd's track and location can make for record setting runs as the cooler weather is perfect for top fuel (Nitrous) funny cars and traditional rail type cars.  On friday the 18th the track set a new National Funny Car record by breaking the 3.80 seconds in the 1000 foot length (it use to be a 1/4 mile for these cars) by Robert Hight with a time of 3.793 seconds and crossing the line at 338 mph.  Think about that for a second!!!, in 3.793 seconds you go from standing still to 338 mph..........uffda is the only word I can think of.  It is fun and exciting to see these care go.  Lory took a video of 2 cars coming down the track and the one the right looses control and pulls in front of the car in the left lane.  That was certainly worth watching for sure. It's quite amazing watching these top fuel guys go down the track in no time flat.

As stated earlier, the boat got back at Frankie's this morning, getting the final touches on the insurance work that I had done from the time they ripped my cover off and removed my electronics. They damaged the plastic dash pieces and because the damage was cosmetic, I decided to not wait for this work to get done prior to my trip to Canada on June 24th.  Well if you don't stay on this stuff eventually no one ever has time to fix it! We already have plans for Lac Seul leaving on September 20th.  Some "not so above board" stuff has been happening with Mille Lacs Lake as the season for fishing walleyes will close coming weekend, it might be just the impetus to head up again, assuming my boat is done in time.