Winter Wonderland in Northern Indiana

Winter Wonderland

Timing really is everything. As I pulled out of our driveway in the wee hours of January 7th to head to St. Louis for the first show of the year, who would have guessed just a short 24 hours later our area of northern Indiana would be buried in 25" of new snow. Milissa (due to a military commitment) was not able to attend St. Louis with me. Talk about being a hero (or goat as the case may be), I go off to talk fishing and hunting for the weekend, she stays home and clears 25" of snow from the driveway. Now I know what many of you are already thinking, and I couldn't agree with you more. It IS a tough job marketing a camp with all the competition out there, but gosh darn it someone has to do it! As our girls would quickly follow up with in their vernacular JK, JK, JK!!!!! ( for those of you who are teenage text unsavvy that stands for "Just Kidding") Fortunately, we do have a snowblower and Milissa wasn't left home to shovel all that snow by hand, and bless her heart she did a great job and I even managed to gather some new business for camp too, although with the shows it's never easy (read on).

Yea! More of the "white stuff"

After leaving St. Louis, on Monday I headed to Indianapolis to work the Indy (actually in Carmel) All-Canada Show. Milissa would join me on Tuesday of the show. Of course, it started to snow making the 2 1/2 hour drive down to Indy a little more eventful but otherwise fine. Unfortunately after a good night of attendance Monday night, the shows (I think mostly due to weather considerations) attendance on Tuesday took a huge hit with probably only 40-50 people attending the show the ENTIRE six hours. As the show GROUND to a halt Tuesday night, I was quietly considering the events of the last week. I leave for St. Louis, Milissa gets buried with snow. She drives thru the snow on Tuesday to help out in Indy and there are very few show attendees----I can feel the noose tightening. Fortunately, we salvaged the day/night with a great experience at Mitchell's Fish Market in Carmel with some wonderfully fresh seafood and a couple of cold beverages. While there, we also received some excellent service from our waitress who is a Notre Dame Law student and who was working there on Christmas break. Thanks again for the great recommendations and excellent service!

Now it's home (and just so everyone knows: the snow gods are also willing to dump on me), to about six inches of fresh snow as I pull in the drive from Indy. MY turn to get behind the snowblower! Won't be long again now and the second half of the show circuit will be upon us and it will be time to hit the road for South Dakota, Nebraska and Minnesota. Let's hope for better weather for travel and at home this time around! Cancellations have been few this year, but a few prime weeks do show a cabin open here or there. Maybe it's the week your looking for!

Until next time--stay warm and I don't think it's too early to (start) thinking spring and that first walleye tap on the end of the line.