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    The President. That was in Austin. But that was before--I mean, that 
was in--[inaudible]--Texas. That was when we had the place in east 
Texas.
    Q. But that was early on, right? I mean, you weren't----
    The President. No, I wasn't--[inaudible]. That was a nice piece.
    This is it for mud. [Laughter] Down here--[inaudible]. We go out to 
the tree line, way out there.
    Q. You know, this summer was the first time I've been to 
Kennebunkport, that was just fabulous.
    The President. It's nice, isn't it? It's not as nice as Crawford, 
but it's nice. [Laughter] Yes, Kennebunkport is a beautiful place to--
[inaudible].
    Q. [Inaudible] But it is a lot more boxed-in than this, you know? 
You can't come some place and just----
    The President. Hang out. There's--[inaudible]--he's looking at his 
cows.
    Q. They seem like they do a good job of not shutting the place down 
at all.
    The President. Kennebunkport?
    Q. Yes.
    The President. Yes, I guess. How do I know?
    Q. It's a lot flatter here.
    The President. Yes. It's not going to be flat here in a minute.
    Q. [Inaudible]--didn't go anywhere yet.
    The President. Well, that's a different--that's your pink route. 
We've got a lot of turkey live on this ranch. It's really fun to see 
them.
    Q. They're pretty.
    The President. Oh, they're fantastic. There's a tank right there. 
Right on the other side there's--[inaudible].
    Q. When you bought it, did you have a pretty good idea what you were 
getting? Or have you discovered----
    The President. No, I discovered a lot. I really did. It was a--I 
knew we were getting some dramatic country that was very rare for Texas, 
but I wasn't sure about all the little nooks and crannies.
    Q. Right. A lot of them still covered up?
    The President. Yes, there are some. You'll see. You'll see some of 
the----
    Q. There seems to be a fair amount of water on the property.
    The President. A lot of water right there. But you'll see some of 
the places that we have cleaned out, and you'll see some of these cliffs 
that have got unique little structures to them. I discovered an 
interesting rock formation the other day when we were up here scouting 
around on this cliff.
    There's a cottonwood tree. See that isolated tree right there? The 
cottonwood is a fantastic tree. It grows along the riverbed, and somehow 
this thing ended up here alone. It must have a source of water. We've 
got two cottonwood trees on the whole ranch, and that's one of them.
    Patsy, are you hitting the tennis ball at all?
    Q. No, not--it's too cold. My hands get too cold to hold the racket. 
I'm not ready to challenge John Bridgeland yet. [Laughter]
    The President. Bridgeland is a good player.
    Q. I know. He played for Harvard, didn't he?
    The President. I think he did. I'll tell you who's a good racket man 
is Al Gonzales.
    Q. Really?
    The President. Racketball.
    Q. Oh, racketball.
    The President. Stretch claims he's a good tennis player.
    Q. Well----
    Q. Patsy and I--[inaudible]--on today. [Inaudible]
    The President. You're a serve and volley guy. I can see it a mile 
away.
    Q. I'm working on my walk. [Inaudible] He's probably going to wear 
out pretty quick.
    The President. You've got the big serve and volley.
    Q. I can cover a lot--[inaudible].

[[Page 11]]

    The President. I bet you can. Like my brother, Marvin, he's a big 
serve and volley man.
    Q. [Inaudible]
    The President. Yes. He's a good player.
    Q. He is. He was able to get great partners, like Chris Evert's 
brother and people like that.
    Q. You know, there's a lot of pros who have moved into McLean, like 
Jana Novotna--[inaudible].
    The President. Really? The territory is beginning to change. See how 
these rocks were right up here on the surface? But what ends up 
happening is that over time, millions of years, rocky roads created 
these canyons we're going into. They're pretty sparse country where 
you've got your rocks--[inaudible].
    Q. So this is one of the canyons we're going into?
    The President. This is the river bottom. We have 3\1/2\ miles of 
river, stream. And the canyons feed into the bottoms here. But the 
waterfall--see the point right there? That's the headwaters of the 
waterfall, and we're going to go down--[inaudible].
    Q. Is this the same river that feeds--[inaudible]?
    The President. Yes. No, let's see. You know, I don't know. The 
middle fork of the Bosque--I think--I don't think so. I'm not sure. You 
know, it might. It might. You may be right. [Inaudible]--falls must be 
running pretty good right now.
    Q. Yes.
    The President. Does it look pretty?
    Q. Yes, it's beautiful.
    The President. We're going to a different part of the world now.
    Q. I'm just grateful you didn't make us clear any brush. [Laughter]
    The President. Well, you'd like it. It's good exercise. I'll show 
you something interesting here. See how that water is coming out of 
those rocks? See it?
    Q. Yes.
    The President. All the aquifers are charged now because of the rain.
    Q. [Inaudible]--Hill?
    The President. No, no. [Inaudible]--Hill is back over there. We're 
not going to be able to get to it because the water across the crossing.
    Q. Oh, really?
    The President. Yes. [Inaudible]--you'd just get soaked.
    Q. Can you get just as good a workout walking like this, as running?
    The President. I think you can.
    Q. I think you can, too. [Laughter]
    Q. You're working out with two. [Laughter]
    The President. But you've got to move. I kind of use it as a warmer-
upper. It's good for you.
    We're going to go right up here. Wait until you see this place I'm 
going to take you. It's cool.
    Q. [Inaudible] [Laughter]
    The President. That was Barney. It's a different world down here.
    Q. It's beautiful.
    The President. We're headed right up in there. These are called 
China berries. See the little berry at the end there? We've got up here 
in this canyon you'll have ash, walnut, different kind of oaks. I've 
become a guy who really likes trees. [Laughter]
    Q. Crash course, right?
    The President. Well, you can really get to appreciate them. Now this 
in here you couldn't--before we got in here you couldn't see the 
contours of this little canyon. And it was really hard to walk in here. 
We got in here and cleaned out a lot of the undergrowth, a lot of the 
dead trees that--see all those trees in there? They were all like that 
in here, way up in here.
    What I want to do is open this up so you can see the contours of 
this little canyon in here.
    Q. Do you have people working here when you're not here, too?
    The President. No, we do it ourselves, and we built all this that 
we're heading into.
    Q. [Inaudible]
    The President. Yes.
    Q. There's just not that much brush to clear at the White House. 
[Laughter]
    The President. Well, they got people clearing it there. You could 
not move in here. I mean, we couldn't--a few years ago, you had to crawl 
through all these rocks to get up in here.

[At this point, the tour continued.]

[[Page 12]]

    The President. [Inaudible]--enough rain, it may have created to 
charge those aquifers enough to withstand the heat.
    Q. What kind of stone is this?
    The President. Limestone. Real soft limestone.
    Q. ----did you know right away when you bought the ranch, or did you 
discover it on----
    The President. No. We had to clear this out. I mean, you could not 
come up here.
    Q. But you brought people down here, right? Like a----
    The President. [Inaudible]--in here. I didn't see this part of the 
ranch when----
    Q. So it was a surprise?
    The President. Yes, it was a surprise.
    Q. It's a nice surprise.
    The President. This is where Putin came. Jiang Zemin did not come 
down here, but Vladimir Putin did.
    Q. That's cool.
    The President. See the cedar? That grows right on the ledge.
    Q. It's on the rocks.
    Q. Has some of it already started to grow back----
    The President. We didn't put it up there.
    Q. [Inaudible]
    The President. We don't clear up top. We clear down here when they 
go against these big--we clear the young.
    Q. Right.
    Q. So how wide a--[inaudible]--that you cleared right----
    The President. Yes, this is all--you could not walk in here, 
literally. It was overgrown. There were seven of them like this, with 
different cuts to them.
    Q. All of them different.
    Q. Did you do it yourself, or did----
    The President. Oh, I do it myself.
    Q. Really?
    The President. Yes. It's part of the fun to be outside working. I 
really enjoy it. There's the great outdoors, and you're supposed to be 
in it. [Laughter]
    Q. Right.
    The President. All right. Retreat.
    Q. Watch those rocks, they're slick.

[At this point, the tour continued.]

    The President. I've seen fox in here.
    Q. [Inaudible]--Barney?
    The President. No, he had some problems. I was afraid Barney would 
come out with--[inaudible].
    Q. Red fox or gray fox?
    The President. Gray fox. Red fox are what?
    Q. We have red fox around Washington.
    The President. Yes.
    Q. You just can't imagine that these kind of little nooks exist out 
here.
    The President. No, isn't it amazing? We had--we brought some friends 
out here. And one of the guys driving said, ``I can't imagine why 
President Bush bought this place. This is some of the worst country in 
Texas.'' But what he didn't realize is that the fingers of the Hill 
Country, which is where you all have been, south of Austin, extend up 
here. If you look on a map, you'll see the topography on the map shows 
this is some unique country.
    Q. How much did you check out the land before you bought it?
    The President. I went all over it. But I didn't, you know----
    Q. You didn't find everything.
    The President. Yes. I didn't crawl up in there. And we saw enough to 
know that there was some pretty unique relief.
    Q. Do you really spend the largest percentage of your time, outside 
of working, out here?
    The President. Absolutely. I'm either--my typical day is I will work 
from about 7 a.m. until 10 a.m., and then will come out and we'll cut 
cedar or fool around, you know, repair something.
    Q. Right.
    The President. And then we'll eat lunch about 12:30 p.m. And 
generally make phone calls then or answer mail or do whatever, and then 
get back out about 4 p.m. and fish. I love to fish.
    Q. Now, when you're stocking your own pond, do you still get credit 
for catching? [Laughter]
    The President. Oh, yes, absolutely. The only time you don't get 
credit is when the Secret Service--right here, take a right--the Secret 
Service frogman puts it on for you. You see the snorkel.
    Q. If you can't see him, then it's totally----

[[Page 13]]

    The President. Right. [Laughter]
    The last time we had the crew here, it was up to the top of that 
canyon, remember? We were clearing. There's another canyon that goes up 
in there. And here's the--here's where they end.
    Q. This is the one we walked up.
    The President. Right.
    Q. With all the brambles and thorns.
    The President. Right. That's right.
    Q. Do you fish from the shore or do you----
    The President. I've got a little boat in there.
    Q. Bait fish or with lures?
    The President. No, fish with lures. The jig is particularly good 
during the winter. These fish are very lethargic, real slow.
    This is about a two-thirds mile pasture here. We're paralleling now 
the middle fork of the Bosque River. You'll see it when we get up here.
    Q. What are these trees?
    The President. Those are cedar elms. They're really pretty in the 
spring.
    Q. Do they flower?
    The President. No, they--they're in leaves. But they're beautiful 
skirts.
    Q. Do you ever sleep in?
    The President. No.
    Q. Never? [Inaudible]
    The President. [Inaudible]
    Q. [Inaudible]
    The President. No. I was probably asleep at 10 p.m. [Laughter]
    Q. Couldn't even see the ball drop on the East Coast.
    The President. In Bermuda.
    Q. [Inaudible] [Laughter]
    The President. I was looking for that ball dropping in London. 
[Laughter]
    Q. [Inaudible]--good enough for you.
    The President. That's right.
    Put him in a Gator. The pickup is better.
    Let me show you something that's really pretty here. When the sun 
sets--west is that way; east is this way--and when the sun sets, the 
cliffs over here, which you'll see in a minute, just completely glow.
    A big cedar elm here.
    Q. There's something running up here. Is this a white-tail or----
    The President. Yes. Did you see it?
    Q. Yes, I saw it.
    The President. Yes, a white-tail deer.
    Q. I grew up in Atlanta. I don't know my--[laughter].
    The President. This is very interesting. There is a relatively tame 
white-tail that has been hanging around here. I saw it the last time I 
walked in here. And it just kind of paralleled--see the cliffs over 
there. That's not on our property. It's right on the other side of the 
river.
    At the end of this pasture, there's a turkey roost up in this area.
    Q. Do you envision a time where you'd live here all the time, or 
will it always be a kind of retreat?
    The President. I think this will be more--that's an interesting 
conversation Laura and I have had. In my view, this will be the primary 
residence, and we'd have a townhouse somewhere else. I think her view 
might be slightly different--[laughter]--in which case, her view will 
prevail.
    Q. Right. [Inaudible]--as much pressure as you do.
    The President. But we do love it out here. One of the reasons we 
picked it--that cedar is a red cedar. Isn't that beautiful? It's unique, 
different from these other trees.
    But this is halfway between Dallas and Austin. Most of our friends 
are in Dallas and Austin, so it's very convenient for our buddies to 
come and visit and----
    Q. Well, you guys aren't often here by yourselves?
    The President. What?
    Q. You're not often here alone, are you?
    The President. No, we're really not. We had--our friends from 
Lubbock came the day after we got here. And our friends from Austin came 
last night. It's a good chance for us to catch up with our buddies, and 
we really like our friends. Yes, it's wonderful.

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