Some Thoughts from the Road Back

I wrote this and tried to post from the road on Saturday, but failed miserably at actually posting it. Technology and I aren't best friends just yet.

I found it interesting today while driving back to STL that you
realize just how uninhabited and barren the US really is when you have
an urgent need for some restroomed-civilization. There are vast
stretches of not "nothing" just "no one." Or maybe its just
need-induced impatience that makes the minutes and miles together
stretch on like gum out of a teenage girl's mouth. Long...and
irritating.

I saw a bumper sticker on a car that said "Live simply: that others
may live simply." I was almost lured into the idea that this driver
was actually a simple living sage who had--or at least was
trying--found true simplicity. The idea found its mortality at the
sight of the car's rear view mirror. There were more objects slung,
hung, and dangled from that essential mirror to make it look like a
hook for all things unnecessary. So much for the sticker.

There is something about memorable fishing trips--even though this
trip qualifies more as a fishing-modified vacation--that sticks with
you for as long as you can hold on to it. Sometimes its conversation
or story or a near-death run-in. I don't see any evidence anywhere
that you ever get to choose what does actually stick, but whatever
does always seems like the right thing to have stuck and gives one the
impression that we do in fact have a choice...and choose the best
things. For me, at least this trip, what I cannot shake is the feeing
of biggish Skipjack on the end on my 3wt.

There was such an intensity in their convulsive way of fighting that
shook the rod so violently...for a few seconds each fish I felt as if
I were hooked up with something really bluewater. I remember being
surprised looking closely at the first one i brought to hand--"this is
what did all THAT?!" Like a kid at the amusement park...I wheeled
around again and again to get back in line for that one ride.

Roadtrips and fishing...they just belong together.