Inside scoop on the outdoor life

Now that we’ve been vaccinated and conditions are improving, my wife says it’s high time we break free.

“Aren’t you tired of being cooped up in the house all day?” she complains. “Don’t you want to step out, breathe some fresh air for a change?”

Her admonition is clearly unwarranted since a day doesn’t pass that I don’t brave the great outdoors.

But she suggests retrieving the newspaper doesn’t rise to the definition of “great outdoors.”

“I’m talking about something beyond the driveway,” she groans. “A distance that requires pants.”

She wants me to take her to Paris. Talk about a leap.

What happened to taking baby steps? How does one suddenly vault from the armchair to the air? I suggested we should work our way up to such an expedition, starting with, say, Trader Joe’s.

Or the Cheesecake Factory. “Besides,” I explain, “we’ve already been to Paris.”

But she says Vegas doesn’t count. She wants to go to what she calls “the real” Paris. See “the real” Eiffel Tower.

Try telling the developer of the billiondollar Las Vegas Paris that their hotel isn’t “real.” Or suggesting the Eiffel Tower on Las Vegas Boulevard is some sort of mirage. I read it happens to be an accurate replica of the French version.

Perhaps a tad shorter.

Then there’s the issue of the round-trip fare to the so-called “real” Paris which, I calculated, would cost us roughly $4,000 more than the 45-minute hop to Mccarran.

She agreed to a compromise, and so we arranged to fly to Montana to visit our daughter. She wants us to join her there permanently someday. But moving to San Diego was a big enough adjustment for a former resident of New York City where the population is three times that of the county and eight times the entire state of Montana.

So it’s not exactly a lifestyle I can easily adapt. I would first have to learn how to drive a tractor, ride a horse, and shoot buffalo with a bow and arrow.

All skills my grandkids have developed. Last week, my 120-pound granddaughter reeled in a 104-pound paddlefish. According to the Internet, it’s a primitive creature that evolved from the Cretaceous period. She released it, which I thought was wise considering fish are only supposed to remain fresh for a few days and this one was 65 million years old.

I’m not suggesting my daughter lives in some sort of backwoods wilderness. They have a Costco.

Still, it’s not likely we’ll soon be leaving sunny San Diego because over there, blizzards can last into June, temperatures often drop below zero, and no chance you’d ever choose to retrieve the paper in your skivvies.

BRODIE PIELSTICK Granddaughter Ashley Luly snagged this 104-pound paddlefish in the Missouri river in western Montana.