Days 3-5 of the brook trout fishing escapade – see Day 1 report: Sin, Salvation and Stacks (and Something Fishy) or Day 2 report: Easier Done than Said

Warning: This post contains no fishing, no fish and no fish byproducts: it is piscatorially and ichthyologically barren.

Wednesday morning dawned a bit foggy. But we were finished fishing, so weather wasn’t much of a worry. The morning plans were to swing by Monticello, Thomas Jefferson’s spread. In my early life, I desired to be an architect and went to an architectural design and drafting school in Arizona. I still have an interest in architecture, and couple that with my interest in history, especially early US history, and Monticello was on my “Bucket List.” Somehow, on my two previous trips to the east, I didn’t make it there.

Monticello sits on a hill to the south of Charlottesville, and I can imagine it has a commanding view of the surrounding countryside. The fog limited our view to just teasing glimpses of what that view might be like. As with most historical sites, Monticello has been properly commercialized through exorbitant admission costs, a fancy museum, a large staff, guided tours, yada, yada, yada. It was nice to see that visitors have free rein to the grounds, which are fairly extensive. For those of you who like history, maybe you’re like me and you’ve grown weary of the sameness of tours and museums: once you’ve been to one Civil War museum, you’ve basically been to them all. Once you’ve been on a tour of one Revolutionary era house, you’ve been on them all. Sure, there are distinct differences from building to building, but I can find that information in a book or online. For me, I just like to bask in the ambiance of a place, try to imagine what it was like in its heyday, which is hard to do when surrounded by a bunch of tourists and a tour guide yacking away. Call me odd (wouldn’t be the first time), but that’s me.

The house structure itself was, at first glance for me, surprising in its size. I was expecting something much larger. Not that it’s puny or anything—the main floor is over 5700 sq. ft. It’s hard to explain, but the main portion of the house looked smaller to me than it actually is. It might have something to do with the “dependencies.” Or the trees. Something. There is plenty of information available online for those who are interested in the details of Monticello. We didn’t spend nearly enough time lounging around the grounds, but I don’t think Dan would have liked to just sit and look. In fact, I couldn’t do the kind of sitting, pondering, photographing, that I like to do unless I was alone.

We quickly wrapped up our visit and hit the road for Nashville, an eight hour drive. As we neared Nashville, Dan remembered that they have a minor league baseball team, Nashville Sounds. He called a couple of places and found out that the Sounds were playing a home game that night. We watched them spank their arch-rivals, Memphis Redbirds 9-0. It was a nice way to unwind after the long drive.

Thursday was a day of waiting. If you didn’t read Day 1, the main purpose behind the trip was for Dan to help his brother, Xxxxx*, transport some guns across country from Williamsburg, VA to Logan, UT. Dan thought it would be a good idea to get to Virginia early and do some brookie fishing. And he invited me along. Xxxxx was catching up with us in Nashville Thursday to complete the trip.

We did some laundry, ate at a Waffle House (about every three blocks is a Waffle House in the southeast—more prevalent than McDonalds) and got a bit of a nap in. As it got closer to departure time, we thought we should head to downtown Nashville since neither of us had visited there before. As we were driving in, a massive thunderstorm dumped on us, and the radio reports were saying that the freeways were clogging up with traffic. We needed to have the rental back to the airport and meet Xxxxx there, so we skipped downtown and headed toward the airport.

We met Xxxxx, loaded our gear into his SUV rental, and headed out of Nashville around 5:00. Our plan was to drive straight home to northern Utah, 1,700 miles away. We planned on taking turns driving, each one of us driving 2-4 hour shifts.

I must admit that driving a load of guns made me feel like a bit of a gun runner. The last thing we wanted was to get pulled over and have to explain what we were doing in a rental vehicle with Florida plates. We had Utah drivers licenses and Xxxxx probably still had his Mexico license since he had just returned to the country from Mexico City.

Somewhere near Salina Kansas, during one of my driving stretches, the wind had picked up a bit. With the weight in the back of the SUV, the front end was a bit squirrely and the wind caused me to sway a bit. It was nearing 3:00AM with hardly a soul on the freeway except for the gun runners, swaying down the freeway at 77 MPH.

And the Highway Patrolman.

He pulled out of the center median as I passed and followed us for a mile before throwing on his light. I woke up Dan and Xxxxx and eased the SUV to the shoulder.

“Can I see your license?”

I handed Mr. Tan Polyester Pants my license.

“Are you awake? You seemed to be weaving all over,” he said as he glanced at my license and looked through the windows at the boxes lining the rear of the SUV and stacked on the folded-down half of the rear seat. He seemed to step back and notice the sag of the rear end of the vehicle and debating with himself what the relationship was between the sag and the boxes.

“Could you tell me what’s in these boxes?”

“Uh…guns?”

At about that time, Xxxxx, from the rear seat, leaned across some of the boxes next to him, and handed him an identification wallet with a badge in it.

“I’m with ICE. And just so you know, I’m armed,” said Xxxxx, as he gestured toward the handgun near him on the back seat.

The KHP looked at the ID, then handed it back to Xxxxx, and returned my driver’s license to me.

“How many guns do you have in here?”

“27,” Xxxxx replied. “I collect them. I just moved to Utah and I’m transporting my collection to my new house.”

The KHP and Xxxxx chatted for a few minutes about guns.

“Make sure you’re awake,” he said as he strode back to his patrol car, still eying the SUV. I watched in the side mirror as he paused, about five paces behind the SUV, still looking at the vehicle. Then he came back to the Driver’s window.

“Could I see what’s in the back?” he asked.

We all piled out of the SUV and opened the back of it.

He glanced inside and saw a number of smaller boxes. “What’s in those?” pointing toward the smaller boxes.

“Ammo,” Xxxxx said.

“Uh-huh.” The mental chin-stroking was clearly evident as he processed this new information. He hemmed and hawed a few more minutes.

“Well, you boys have a safe trip,” he said. And left.

“So Xxxxx, how much ammo do you have in here?” Dan asked, after the patrolman closed his door.

“About 50,000 rounds,” he said.

And we did have a safe and quiet ride the remainder of the way home.

* I could disclose Agent Xxxxx’s name to you, but then I’d have to…well, you know.

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