New Year's Resolutions

Well, it's already 5 days into the new year and only now can I get started on my resolution: to blog more. Actually, that's only one resolution -- the other is to not bite off more than I can chew.

Already things are getting busy. Next weekend is the Indiana-on-the-Fly show, and I'll be driving down on Friday, white knuckling it all the way as the next storm front approaches me in my little truck loaded with all The Painted Trout's inventory in the world.

Less than two weeks later I leave to drive east to Somerset, NJ for The Flyfishing Show. Truck loaded just about the same. Who wants to drive Route 80 across Pennsylvania in January? I made it the last two years but, lawdy, I don't want to push my luck. One year Jack and I were driving east to visit my family in New England and we hit a patch of ice coming around a curve on an incline. Needless to see we felt lucky to be alive after having cleared that truck we were passing when the skid started. We got off at the next exit (Clarion) and found ourselves in an honest-to-god flophouse in some town about 5 miles north of the highway. It was the stuff of a Fellini movie-cum-fever dream, with a little bit of Vegas thrown in. But like I say, we were happy to be alive.

Then, on Feb 5, I'll drive to Cincinnati for the Buckeye United Flyfisher's Show (aka Greater Cincinnati Fly Fishing Show) on Feb. 6. Not too fond of driving through another nortorious snow belt.

Then a nice break until the Midwest Fly Fishing Expo in March. That's here in Michigan -- close to home AND one of the best shows in the country -- by all accounts. That's where I met a lot of the characters who appear in this blog and elsewhere (Ron, Chuck, Carl, Kelly - a few more).

In April I hope to make it to the Virginia Flyfishing and Wine Tasting Festival in Waynesboro -- and perhaps along the way retrace some Harry Middleton footsteps. That's a really fun show in a really pretty setting. Great people and great food.
One week later there's a chance I'll be a vendor at the International Women Fly Fishers Festival in Charleston, SC. Hope I still have some inventory left. Or not.

Then it's May. I had big plans to make a road trip out to Wyoming/Montana/Idaho, but there's a little family business that might instead have me in Cape Cod.

Is that biting off a lot?

Okay, but is it more than I can chew?

Stay tuned.