Exploring the back roads for Americana and angling

The red-tailed hawk swooped down, practically skimming the hood on my truck. A tremendous sight if I may say so. And I continued on, wondering if the hawk thought my truck was its next meal.

I crossed over into Wisconsin on some secondary road and kept heading northward. Two hundred miles later, I found myself dodging in and out of small hamlets, soaking up the scenery.

I must have crossed over eight or nine beautiful streams, with water cascading over the banks of each one. These were the victims of our late summer storms and flooding. And yet I remembered some of these small waterways holding great smallmouth action for me years ago.

I pulled in to a small town for a fuel stop. Across the street from the pumps stood an old eatery, replete with a large, hand-drawn menu sitting aside the front door.

This place had more than panache, it had character. After a sandwich and soft drink, I slowly walked back to my truck thinking that towns like this one are true gems, places today's teenage sons and daughters never see unless dragged through here by parents.

There are many places like this town at every turn. There are also winding streams we don't know about unless a cousin calls and invites us here for a weekend.

And each little community has its gathering place for local gossip and tall tales. It could be a decades-old tavern with beer-stained floors and cracked vinyl stools.

And the further north one travels, the more exotic these gin mills become.

My next stop brought me to one of these places with an expanse of mahogany for its customers. Behind the bar sat a large muskie mount faded by years of exposure to smoke and time, with a rusty, foot-long muskie lure fixed to the same wall. Three feet to the left were a full-size split-bamboo muskie rod and reel hung between two large nails. It wasn't my place to ask who laid claim to that beast.

If I traveled a main road, I probably could have signed in at a modern-day bed and breakfast, but here, on roads with two-letter names and worn-out blacktop, one would encounter an old resort or two. One lodge did stand by the highway, nestled in between the tall spruce but nary a light shone through the smudged window panes. All I wanted was four walls and a hard mattress.

It was 6 p.m., and back home I imagined what Rand Road looked like at this time of the day. Here though it was a different scene. Rush hour in these parts is simply waiting for three does and two white tail bucks to wander their way across the road and ignore any human interloper.

When I lived in Madison, Wis., I had the ability to search out tiny little "supper clubs" for a decent meal. Now all I wanted was something to fill me up. I walked into one of these clubs, sat down and ordered dinner. Why does a strip steak taste better when eating it in a place that was featured in the Knotty Pine Annual?

I found my mattress without too much trouble and got up early enough to catch breakfast at another diner specializing in pancakes and home made sausage. With that under my belt I drove a half-mile to more side roads and discovered a small chain of lakes with a connecting channel. And there was a kid with a spinning rod catching bluegills.

That could have been me 50 years ago. I sniffed the air, the kid twitched the rod. I stretched my early morning muscles, while he flexed his arm with another cast.

This was Americana in a grand way. This is why I travel the back roads to find the real treasures that embed themselves into my memory bank.