Mr. P and I hadn�t seen either of our families for a while so we booked a cross-country whirlwind tour. We left San Francisco very, very early so my stomach was already a little queasy when we got on the plane and then I discovered upon entering the cabin that is was filled with the funk of smelly old ASS. Not just stale air or the waft of poo from the bathroom but the persistent and constant stench of dirty, stinky ASS. On a good day I feel like puking about 70% of the time but this odor bumped it up to 99%, Mr. P and I suffered through the next four and a half hours breathing through our mouths as to avoid retching. Although I must admit Mr. P had it slightly worse than I did as an enormous woman kept getting out of her seat and bending over to put her ass right in his face and on more than one occasion knocked his book nearly out of his hand with her butt cheeks. So I�m guessing that ATA stands for All The Ass you can take airlines. We landed in Chicago and ended up waiting another hour for our rental car, which put us on the expressway at precisely 4:30 p.m. We didn�t exceed 12 mph for the next two hours. The normal three hour drive to my parent�s house took us six hours.

Our first offical stop was to visit my parents in Indiana (a.k.a Lynndiana) at their new place on the lake. Mr. P, being born on Long Island and raised by Italians in Upstate New York, had really never been fishing before so my Dad arranged a few rods and we went out in search of record sized bluegill and crappie for dinner.

My parent's cottage is on a private lake fed by a channel from a huge clear water lake on the Michigan, Indiana, and Ohio border. No one has really ever fished their lake so there are monster bass and possibly trout and sturgeon in the deep water as well as a huge population of pan fish for the taking. On our first trip out something a kin to a lake monster sheared my lure right off TWICE without even a thought. On numerous occasions we'd witnessed enormous fish jumping out of the water chasing dinner to the surface and then coming down like a cannon ball.

Maybe not the best picture but my mom took it from her kayak that you can clearly see in the foreground. Which actually is better than the picture of her eyeball which see took when she couldn�t figure out which way the lens was pointed.

Bluegill and crappie bounty before and after. Mr. P was pretty squeamish during the cleaning process, which my dad did entirely by himself I might add, but not so hesitant about the eating stage of the fishing trip.

After the thrill of catching pan fish died down we decided to up the ante and have an impromptu bass fishing contest. I was pretty confident going in since during the last few days I�d had some major hits and once when I was bringing in a small bluegill a giant fish had followed it up to my lure but turned away at the last minute. And I did get the first bite of the evening but the fish spit the hook before I could get it in the boat. Mr. P ended up getting the prizewinner with a respectable bass.

However, after we left my Mom landed the mother of all large mouth bass at 5 lbs 6 oz this fish was larger than anything my Dad had caught in the forty years of fishing.

In addition to fishing we had a campfire, which Mr. P tended to obsessively, where we cooked s�mores over an open flame. We kayaked the lake and channel, saw a wild turkey fly from one tree to another with more grace than I thought a turkey had but still not the most lithe of flights and landings. And Mr. P found an old abandon canoe. I was going to scare him with talk of the ghost of Red Jacket, a local Indian chief, but was just too worn out to try.

One of nights at the cottage we spotted eerie bright lights on the lake and Mr. P asked my Dad what he thought is was. When my Dad said people frog gigging Mr. P went into an uncontrollable fit of laughter. Mr. P likes to presume that I come from hill folk and while I do know how to bait a hook and have witnessed a field dressed deer my people are closer to the Audubon Society style of outdoor living than the drunken, NASCAR, beer swilling, red-necked, frog gigging crew but it amused Mr. P none-the-less. When he found out exactly what frog giggin� entailed he was in heaven seeing as it takes a sharp spear a.k.a. gig, a spotlight, bull frogs and a steady hand. We found out later that a neighbor and guests were actually bow & arrow hunting for dogfish but I�m not sure if that makes it less or more hick than frog gigging. We were planning on stopping into the bait shop the next day to get Mr. P a special frog gigging license but unfortunately the guy was on vacation so the shop was closed. The coup de grace was once we got back to town Mr. P saw an ad for a combine demolition derby scheduled the following weekend. It was pretty much over for me at that point.

On the way out of town Mr. P decided to record the Roller Dome for all posterity so Tony, this one's for you.