Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Pastimes : Don't Ask Rambi -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Gauguin who wrote (55349)	8/29/2000 1:10:30 PM
From: Ilaine	Respond to of 71178

Hi guys, I seem to have finally landed for a bit. Karma and I posted about the trip to Hotlanta, which is a beautiful city. It's gotten a lot bigger since we were last there. The environmental consulting company Chris worked for back in 1985 sent him there while I was still in Tulane, pregnant with Ben. I had been accepted to transfer into Emory and was looking forward to living there, but Chris got another job back in New Orleans so we stayed there. That's the last time I was in Atlanta. The skyline is gorgeous, if you like cities, and I do. I also realized on the trip just how much I like driving down the highway. Rover has comfy leather seats and a great sound system, and we played CDs that we hadn't heard in a while, and I sang along with my favorite songs. The speed limit is 70 most places, and if you go 75 you'll never get stopped, so we just did that, mile after steaming hot green kudzu engulfed mile, the ribbons of white highway paint whipping past like snakes. We got to Baton Rouge late Friday night, and my dad had dinner waiting for us. We yadda-yaddaed very late, and I showed my sister the box of pictures I just got from Cousin Harvey, the ones with all the old photos from North Dakota, Minnesota and Canada from the turn of the century, and then Biloxi. I told my dad if the weather was good we wanted to go fishing down at the mouth of the river, but he let us sleep late Saturday and we went looking at digital camera equipment instead. I've got my heart set on a new Sony Cybershot that just came out, and he wants me to help him buy a photo-quality scanner and printer. So we went fishing on Sunday. This is a very big deal, because it's so far away. The drive down to Venice takes about three hours through New Orleans and then south along the Great River Road along the west bank. Then we launched the boat, a 23 ft. Bay Cruiser that isn't rigged for offshore, unfortunately. The offshore boat is the 25 ft. Bertram, which needs engine work. He sold the 38 ft. Chris Craft a while back, it was too much keeping up with it at the time due to all he was going through. The trip down the Mississippi River takes about an hour going very fast. I've been doing this all my life, but I wish I could describe it so you could see it with my eyes. (Didn't buy the digital camera, my dad wanted me to comparison shop, if you knew him you'd know why I gave in, but I thought I'd get a chance at it before we left and he finagled it so I didn't.)(Did take some still photos with his Nikon and will post when I get them developed.) The Mississipppi River is huge, it's tremendously wide at that point, and there is a lot of traffic, ocean going vessels, working fishing and shrimp boats, crew boats and work boats going out to the rigs, and pleasure boats. The land really isn't what anyone would call land, it's just dirt that hasn't been washed away yet, but everything is green because it's so fertile and so hot and so wet. End of part one.

To: Gauguin who wrote (55349)	8/29/2000 1:29:31 PM
From: Ilaine	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 71178

We opened up the house boat and left the luggage and ice chests and food there, and headed out to fish. My dad knows the place like the back of his hand, so we started hitting the favorite places looking for one where the fish were biting. If we spent 15 minutes without getting good fish, we'd move on to the next. We fished at the Mud Lumps, the Eads Jetty, we went out to the East Bay oil rigs, which is 60 ft. deep level, looking for snappers and groupers, we fished the Garden Island Bay looking for bass and red fish and speckled trout, we went up to Telephone Lake and Fresh Water Bayou looking for bass. Didn't really catch much, according to my father, we caught a lot of hard tail mackerel out by the rigs, but those are not supposed to be good eating, so we kept a few for bait and threw the rest back. We caught a lot of catfish closer in, but most were hard-heads, which are also not supposed to be good eating. Kammer caught a big redfish, and a brown mullet or whiting, which my dad fried for supper Sunday night, and I made a huge salad. We fished for about five hours on Sunday. On Monday morning we went back out, and started the rounds again. I caught a couple of croakers, and was having a good time, but the game wardens came up and wanted to see our licenses, and mine had fallen out of my pocket. The warden couldn't verify that I had one by radio because his radio couldn't pick up the phone towers, but he just let me go with a warning because Chris showed him his. So I had to quit fishing and just took photos. Used up all my film too fast. This is a world made of water, and you really feel it in Louisiana. The boundary between land and water is tenuous, permeable, temporary, the boundary between river and sea is constantly changing. The three worlds, land, river and sea, meet and mingle here, enriching all three. This is also a world inhabited by man, and his handiwork is quite visible, when you look offshore you see the oil and gas rigs spotting the horizon as far as the eye can see. To someone who is not from Louisiana, this may seem offensive, but when I look at it I know that it's making money for the poor coonasses and rednecks, so they can put a house trailer between them and the elements that are so unrelenting down there, and fill up my Rover so I can come down here to see it, and my dad's Bay Cruiser so he can bring me even closer, and let me sit in the boat, rocking back and forth in the arms of the water I love so well.