jh wrote:
ps...john, any chance you'll get over to the madison in july? been way
too long since we've chased the trout.)

unknown. As with many areas the economy in our little corner of the
world has taken a big whack. The paper mill shut down which was one of
the largest single private employers in the county, The outfall from
that (support contractors, suppliers, trucking, etc) has not really
been realized yet. The Plum Creek lumber mill in Bonner closed up last
year, Macy's is closing up shop next month, one hospital went through
a round of lay offs, the old Brady's Sportsmans Surplus closed its
doors. Meanwhile the recovery $ here are being spent on such high
minded projects as installing new windows in an old fish hatchery, re-
shingling some old ranger cabins, and a few misc. road resurfacing
projects.

Private money funded projects are almost non-existent and the banks
are locked up tighter than a drum. Talking to other contractors,
bankers, etc., the consensus is that we will be flat for at least 2
more years. Consequently, contractors are bidding things at absurd
rates and bidding over much larger geographical areas than they would
normally. A couple weeks back we lost a state funded project to a
Utah based contractor no one here has even heard of before. One friend
of mine told me they have been seeing bid prices at about 1995 levels,
but neither material nor labor costs are going down, so there will be
a lot of failures and/or wild backcharges.

Talking to the fly shop the other day, our snowpack in western mt is
about 55% of normal. George said that the snow has been at what he
considers drought levels for 8 of the last 11 years.

OTOH I may have lots of spare time this summer.

john


ouch...hope it works out so you need a well-desrved vacation from too
much work. if so, july 9-19.

jeff