Preparation - Part 1

The launch date for my four-month-long, fly-fishing-oriented ramble through the four corners of the USA is May 20.  A great deal of preparation is in order.  Okay, it’s not exactly like Lewis and Clark forming the Corps of Discovery and outfitting for a multi-year adventure into the unknown.  Still, four months is a fairly long time to be on the road, and housing one’s self in a truck camper isn’t quite the same as staying at the Four Seasons – the latter is what I grew accustomed to during a 30-year career embedded in the high finance jet set.  I’m striving for a level of comfort midway between that of a hobo hopping trains and Jackie Onassis on Aristotle’s yacht.  Trish might say I'm trending toward the hobo end of the range.

As you know, I already have my Chevy Silverado 2500 and my Northstar camper.  The camper is well-appointed with a queen-sized bed, a refrigerator, a two-burner stove top, a shower and a toilet.  It’s amazing what Northstar can squeeze into a unit that slides into the back of a pick-up truck.  Lewis and Clark would have killed for a Chevy and a Northstar two centuries ago, provided there had been roads and gas stations.  I’ve also acquired some campfire cooking equipment, including an iron stand (for hanging pots) forged by my friend Jeff Carithers, and a small dutch oven and other tools and accoutrements to keep myself well-fed and well-rested.  The basic comforts are all there, but I’m trying not to stuff the camper with things I won't use.

Recently I bought aTrailex kayak/canoe trailer.  Because I will be fishing on a wide variety of waters, including in-shore saltwaters, rivers, ponds and lakes, a variety of boats are called for and I’m still trying to decide which combination of a kayak, a canoe and a pontoon boat I’m going to haul.  I may take all three.  Plus a bike so I can shuttle myself on river floats.  And of course a cargo box of some sort to hold paddles, lifejackets, fishing equipment and related items.   I’m still working on the trailer set-up, trying to figure out which arrangement works best without adding unnecessary weight.

Electronics!  First, there are the cameras, which are critical to my ability to document my journey and feed this blog – I’ll primarily use a 14 mega-pixel Canon with 35x zoom for stills and videos, and a GoPro for POV action videos.  The GoPro is waterproof and can be mounted on my head or on a boat or bike when I’m fishing, floating or doing anything else requiring a hands-free mode of recording video.  Communication equipment is vitally important - Trish and I will try to touch base every day while I’m traveling, if possible.  In addition to my Droid X smartphone, which contains a mobile 3G hotspot (sort of a mobile wi-fi) and an excellent GPS facility, I’ll have my Skype-and-webcam-equipped laptop PC, a back-up Tom Tom GPS, and the ultimate electronic wilderness safety device – a Spot.  My friend Dan Stephano told me about the Spot, which is a little hand-held unit that connects to satellites and periodically notifies selected people (primarily Trish) of my exact whereabouts.  The Spot also has an emergency button, so if a grizzly bear chews off my leg while I’m ten miles up on a mountain in the Yukon, I can summon the closest wilderness rescue team to helicopter me to a hospital.  I’m planning not to use the emergency button, but perhaps it will give Trish more peace of mind, knowing that I have it.  Finally, I’ll have no shortage of music options.  What’s a road trip without music?  I have an iPod Touch fully loaded with songs from CDs and iTunes, a Pandora app on my Droid X, and for good measure, an XM satellite radio unit in the Chevy.   For reading, I’ll carry a Kindle.  In addition to a bag of batteries and a variety of plugs that will enable the Chevy to keep most this stuff powered up, I’ll carry a portable battery starter/air compressor/USB power supply for emergency charging and tire maintenance.

Wow!  When I put all that stuff together in a list, I realize how ridiculous it seems.  But it could be worse.  I’m not taking a TV, for example.  Have you seen all the satellite dishes on RVs in campgrounds?  I won’t have one of those.  And I’ve resisted the siren call of the iPad.  I thought about taking a portable gas-driven generator, but I probably won’t.  In this digital age, there is no limit to the number of electronic gadgets seeking to enslave you.  I’ll try to deploy mine judiciously.  A key point of the trip is to have some quiet time – a period to reflect on my past and future and to focus on fly fishing and nature.  Henry David Thoreau would have been appalled by my approach, and Lewis and Clark may have been envious.  I’ll just try to apply the 80-20 rule that was drilled into me during my career and seems to apply to just about everything – that is, I'll spend 80% of my time engrossed in the activities that are the principal reasons for taking this journey, and 20% of my time connecting with the rest of the world.  That seems about the right balance.  What do you think?

How to Post Comments - Part 2

It has come to my attention (thanks Trish!) that my advice of yesterday about how to post comments is not complete if you are a subscriber to the blog and you read each post in the update e-mails you receive.  If you are subscriber, you will see a note at the bottom of each e-mail that says "You are subscribed to e-mail updates from Once and Future Fly Fisherman."  Click on the link in that note - i.e., "Once and Future Fly Fisherman" in blue letters.  That will take you to the actual blog site.  Once you are on the blog site, follow the instructions in my previous post in order to post a comment that can be viewed by others.

If you are a subscriber and you receive a post in an e-mail and reply to it, I will receive your reply in my e-mailbox but it won't be posted as a public comment.

Hope that covers it.  Take care.

How to Post Comments

Some of you have asked how to comment on my posts.  At the bottom of each post you'll see a link that shows how many comments have been made on that post - e.g., 2 Comments, or 0 Comments.  The link has yellow letters.  Click on that link and a comment form will open.  It's obvious from that point what to do next.  I look forward to hearing from you.

I would welcome comments on my last post - Meditations on the Road, Part 3 - which precedes this one.  I'm particularly interested in what you feel about being on the road, and about the idea of searching for America.

Meditations on the Road - Part 3

One of the most renowned books about a road trip is John Steinbeck’s “Travels with Charley.”  Many people I know have remarked that “Travels” is their favorite book by Steinbeck.  I’ve read substantially all of Steinbeck’s published works and in my (not humble) opinion, “Travels” ranks in the lower tier.  The reason I mention this book is that at least 10 or 12 friends and acquaintances have said to me, when learning of my upcoming journey around America, that my trip reminds them of “Travels.”  After hearing that comment a few times, I decided to reread “Travels,” which I last read way back in the early 70’s.

There are definite parallels between the grand excursion I’ve planned and Steinbeck’s tour.  Among them:  he was 58 when he launched, as am I; he bought a pickup truck and a truck camper specifically for his journey, as did I; his trip started in New York, and mine will start in nearby eastern Pennsylvania; he took some fishing equipment with him, and I’ll take A LOT of fishing equipment with me; he drove many thousands of miles circling America, and I’ll drive many thousands of miles circling America (about twice as many as Steinbeck did, actually). Beyond that, our escapades may not much resemble one another.

I have nothing against dogs – I like dogs – but the idea of taking a poodle (such as Steinbeck’s Charley) with me as a principal companion just doesn’t hold much appeal.  And although Steinbeck suggested early in his book that fishing would be an important activity on his trip, in fact he did very little fishing and demonstrated little competence when he did.  I will fish frequently.  But the most important departure is that our fundamental missions are wholly different.  Steinbeck’s stated goal was to rediscover the Americans about whom he had been writing for decades.  To his credit, he realized that he had resided too long in an ivory tower, having been honored with the Pulitzer Prize over two decades earlier.  His prominence rivaled or exceeded Hemingway’s or any of the other famed American novelists of the mid-20^th century – an era when the phrase “the great American novel” really meant something.  He was known as a voice of the common man, of the Tom Goad’s of America, but now he recognized that his perspective had warped.  He wanted to travel about, somewhat aimlessly, and talk to Americans of all stripes and from many regions, plying them with whiskey when his subdued personality couldn’t draw them out.  His goal was a noble one and perhaps he believed he achieved it in the end.

The problem with Steinbeck’s effort was one that I discussed in a recent post – the problem that “wherever you go, there you are.”  Steinbeck lugged his liberal socialist ideals around with him wherever he went and observed everyone through a reddish lens.  Back in the sixties, it was certain he would find many Americans who would offend his humanistic sensibilities.  He did, of course, especially in the southern states.  Many people who know me would say that I show liberal socialist tendencies.   I think I’m more of a pragmatist than a liberal, strictly speaking, but I strongly sympathize with Steinbeck’s ideals and they are among the reasons I’ve always admired him as a novelist.  Many of the same racist and greed-laden attitudes and comments that incited him to create scathing and sarcastic depictions of certain characters in “Travels” would have offended me as well.  Although I understand perfectly why Steinbeck was angered and disillusioned by some of the backwards and materialistic people he encountered, the difference between us is that I don’t have the ostensible goal of gaining a higher level of understanding of Americans.   Steinbeck seemed not to realize how his biases stunted his capacity for learning.  If the content of “Travels” reflects any newly-acquired knowledge of people’s souls, I’m missing it. Steinbeck saw in Americans exactly what he projected on them.  There are no insights into the causes of the attitudes and behaviors he despised.

I won’t be writing about America in the way Steinbeck did, in part because it is not my primary goal to learn more about Americans.  My goals are to learn more about fly fishing, firstly, and myself, secondly.  To the extent I focus on meeting new people, I’m not going to write about how ignorant they are, even if they are.  America and Americans are exceedingly complex and no writer can adequately capture that complexity in a mere book, or blog, or anything else he or she can generate from experiences within a few months or even a lifetime, no matter how far ranging are his or her travels.  Walt Whitman came as close as anyone to accomplishing that in his “Leaves of Grass” (not coincidentally, poetry rather than prose).  I’m sorry to say that Steinbeck failed miserably in “Travels with Charley,” notwithstanding his greatness as a chronicler or American experience and writer of fiction.

Simon and Garfunkel recorded an excellent tune in the late sixties about traveling “to look for America.”  Every line has a great scene or image – for example, as the narrator rides on a bus he observes that “the moon rose over an open field.”  It’s a simple image that perfectly captures his solitude and ennui.  At the conclusion of the song, the listener is left with the distinct impression that the narrator did not find America – he simply skimmed its surface, repeatedly bumping into himself in every scene.  Simon and Garfunkel understood the futility of searching for America.  Our nation is a chimera.  It’s polymorphic and mercurial, and it’s all the wonderful things Whitman said it was.

In my song, you won’t hear about how I discovered America or Americans.  But I hope you’ll find out that a fly fisherman can practice his craft just about anywhere in America that the oceans and rivers and lakes remain clean.  He can find joy in that, and in spending some quiet time with himself and his friends.

Heading Home Tomorrow

Today is my last day in Wyoming until I return in July.  As this trip winds down I reflect on the events and sights of the past week.  We saw abundant wildlife – bighorn sheep, bison, bald eagles, pronghorn antelope.  We caught and released dozens of trout (and kept a few for tonight’s final dinner) - Yellowstone and Snake River fine-spotted cutthroats, German browns and rainbows - and a mess of whitefish destined for Chip’s smoker.  We waded in clear rivers with ice-crusted banks sparkling in the spring sun – the Shoshone, the Wood, the South Fork of the Shoshone, the Clark’s Fork of the Yellowstone – each framed by snow-streaked mountains and the high crowns of hoodoos atop canyon walls.  We drank bourbon and rye in Meeteetse’s Cowboy Bar, which purportedly once entertained Butch Cassidy and other famous outlaws, and tasted scotch in the bar at Cody’s Irma Hotel, which was originally owned by Buffalo Bill and named for his daughter.

Spending early springtime in the Rockies is a dubious endeavor.  The weather changes from hour to hour and the wind is often stiff and cold.  One day we fished high on the Wood River west of Meeteetse.  To the north was a fine sunny vista, but above us were thin clouds that alternately generated fluffy heavy flakes and fine blizzard-like blowing snow.  The view upriver to the south featured the steep slopes of some of the tallest mountains in the Absaroka Range, their crests swirling in clouds and wind-borne snow.  In this transitional time, evidence of recent elk and moose habitation existed all along the banks of the Wood, but it was also apparent that those animals had already begun their migration into higher country.

These experiences are heightened when shared with old friends.  In this case, two of my oldest friends – Don Walter (Chip) and John Boehm (Buck) accompanied me.  Chip's place near Meeteetse was our HQ.  Buck’s brother-in-law, Bob Bushmaker, who has a cabin similar to Chip’s near Butte, Montana, drove down with his black lab, Lou, to hang with us for a couple of days.   I’ve known Bob since the late 70’s when Buck and I drove out west together with a cargo of books strapped to the top of my car, stopping for a memorable evening at Bob's place.  I was planning to move to Idaho back then.  I didn’t, but it all worked out for the best.  I came back to Iowa after a few months,  and it was around that time I first met Chip, and not long after, met my wife, Trish.  All that happened over 30 years ago, and our relationships stand strong today.  Chip, Buck, Bob and I share a love for the outdoors and bonds of mutual experience that will likely last long into the future.  Here’s a picture that Buck took yesterday of Chip, Bob and me, suited up and ready to fly-fish the Clark’s Fork.

To wrap things up, here's a great picture, taken by Bob, of a gorgeous cutthroat trout characteristic of those that swim in many Wyoming rivers and streams:

Hard to imagine a better ending than that.

Oops!

I know I've said this blog is about fly fishing travel and I don’t want to disappoint anyone who may be reading this expecting that fly fishing travel will be the subject of every post.  Here’s the thing – a lot of stuff can happen when you’re traveling, and it’s all good and worthy of writing about (except when it’s not).  Let’s get the fly fishing part out of the way first.  Yesterday I caught about twenty hefty trout – cutthroats, browns and a single long rainbow – on the Shoshone River.   In two or three earlier posts I’ve referred to blue-winged olive mayflies (BWOs).  About 3 pm yesterday, I saw more BWOs than I’ve previously witnessed in once place – thousands of them skittering in the surface film of the river.  It was fascinating and hypnotic to follow my little artificial fly drifting amidst dozens of real mayflies.  While my tiny poseur bobbed along dispassionately, the real BWOs were desperate to dry their gossamer wings, struggling to rise up before they were eaten.  A lot of them didn’t make it because trout were darting in and out of the river stones for a hundred yards in both directions, gorging themselves on the incredible bounty.  Nature is violent.  Many of us may wish it weren't, but it just is.  Gorgeous, innocent, newly-hatched, fairy-winged mayflies gobbled by ravenous predator fish.  That's violent, but beautiful all the same.  

Enough about fly fishing for today.  Last night it snowed high up in the Absaroka Mountains, so Chip and I decided to make the long jaunt up to Pahaska Teepee, which is within a rifle shot of the eastern border of Yellowstone Park.  There was fresh snow there and the cross-country ski trails were in excellent shape.  The vistas in that part of the country cannot be described in words.  I shot some video and took a few pictures that I’ll share later when I have time to process them.  “Spectacular” doesn’t begin to describe the scene.   Chip and I launched ourselves east on our skis toward the Sleeping Giant ski area, which was doing an active business with downhillers and snowboarders.  The moment we glided up to the lodge, Chip performed a major pratfall in the middle of a small crowd of skiers, landing on his back with his skis swinging above him.  Naturally I had some commentary for the assemblage about Chip’s qualities as a skier and as a human being in general.  Very amusing, I can assure you.

Now I have to tell you that Chip has insisted I should be “transparent” in my blog.  (I think he learned that term when he spent some time in bad-boy school not too long ago.)  Maybe he’s right.  So in the interest of full disclosure, I must inform you that I also had a minor mishap on my skis.  But I’m excused – it was the first time I’ve been on cross-country skis in over a year, I was unfamiliar with the skis, the curve at the bottom of the hill was tricky, and I was just getting my ski legs.  I have all the excuses.  The important point is that I remained upright the rest of the day whereas Chip did not.  Unfortunately, Chip has photographic evidence on me, while I can only summarize in mere words what happened to him.  Here’s his evidence: 

So there you go - transparency.  But don't get spoiled - I intend to make myself out to be more of a hero most of the time.

Day One in Wyoming

A picture says a thousand words.

Chip with Brown Trout

What's Next?

I’m writing this from the air over the great Midwestern plains, on my way to Denver.  My goal for today was to make it to Meeteetse, Wyoming, via Chicago, Denver and Cody.  But my bad luck with flying this year continues unabated.  I spent an extra, unplanned three and a half hours marooned in O’Hare; consequently, I’ll be very late getting into Denver and will miss my flight to Cody this evening.  Hopefully I’ll track down my checked bag in Denver, catch a ride to a hotel, and find another flight out tomorrow.  Good thing I’m retired and have time to spare.  That knowledge isn’t much consolation to me at the moment, but a second free cup of Dewars is providing some measure of solace.

I’ve already answered my title question – what's next is that I’m bound for Wyoming, which has been a second home to me for the last eleven or twelve years.  If the magma churning under Yellowstone National Park doesn’t soon turn the area into a wasteland of pyroclastic material, as some prophets say it will, western Wyoming will likely continue to be my primary getaway for many years to come.  While I was stuck in O’Hare this afternoon, I was reading “Bird Cloud” by Annie Proulx, who is arguably Wyoming’s finest prose laureate even though she’s a latecomer to the state.  Her vivid depictions of the colored crags, scrubbed prairie and raptor-filled skies ripped by winds straight out of Zeus’s cheeks ring entirely true to me.  Wyoming is not for the faint of heart.  If I remember correctly, it’s the least populated state, per square mile, in the lower 48.  No one who has been there should be surprised by that.  But it’s the very absence of people – the fierce wildness of the place – that attracts me so much.

By tomorrow afternoon, or the next day at the latest, I expect to have a tight connection to a hefty brown trout on the South Fork of the Shoshone River.  Might see an elk herd leaping fences, or bighorn sheep butting heads.  Certainly a lot of pronghorn antelope and mule deer, and definitely a host of regal mountains crowned with clouds and robed in snow.  I can already envision, in my mind’s eye, what I am likely to witness from the deck of my friend Chip’s cabin – spurs of the Absaroka Mountains stretching into the raw desert of the Bighorn basin, badgers and mountain lions slinking through the sage and across distant ridges, and the Milky Way as well-defined in the frigid night sky as an interstate highway is on my GPS.

That’s what’s next!  I’ll tell you more about it when it’s real.  Very soon, very soon, I fervently hope.

Meditations on the Road - Part Two

The saying “Wherever you go, there you are” is attributed by many to Confucius.  Whether or not Confucius said it first, or ever, it’s been repeated often over the centuries, and it’s profoundly true.  What does it mean?  It means, of course, that you can’t escape yourself.  The most common approach to the pursuit of happiness by people who are unhappy or think they should be happier is to change something external to themselves – they get married, have babies, change jobs, move into a bigger houses, etc.  In many cases those changes promote greater happiness, but often they don’t, or the improvement is temporary.  Happiness is derived largely from within.  When change is primarily external, the person making the change still has to live with him/herself and whatever perceptions and attitudes he/she possesses, including those that induce unhappiness.  That’s my opinion, anyway - purportedly shared by Confucius.

What does this have to do with “the road?”  As you know by now if you’ve read my previous posts, I expect to be traveling a lot this year, primarily by car (or truck, to be precise).  I’m tempted to think that the very acts of driving around and fly-fishing for months will make me a happier person.  But if my argument above holds water, it won’t.  Fortunately I’m already very happy, but the risk is that I’ll have more time alone with myself than I’m accustomed to, and I might find out that I’m not great company.  That’s not the outcome I hope for.   Road trips necessarily generate new experiences for the tripper, and new experiences in turn generate new insights and awareness.  But there is no guarantee that either the experiences or the insights will be pleasant.  Remember the infamous road trip in the movie “Animal House?”  Think about it.

I’m not really too worried about this.  When I’m alone in my Silverado or drifting down a river in my pontoon boat or kayak, I don’t expect to dredge up, from the darkest recesses of my mind, any dirt that I haven’t already thoroughly processed.  For one thing, I expect to be distracted by the fresh scenery and the constant anticipation of catching fish, which are major sources of adrenaline and endorphins for me.  And to further mitigate the risk that too much alone time will transform me into Jack Nicholson’s character in “The Shining,” I’ve invited several friends to accompany me for more than half my journey.  But the point is, when you launch yourself into unfamiliar territory, you can’t be sure that what you’ll find there will always be good.  That’s what makes a road trip an adventure and not a cake walk.  I’m up for it!

What do you think?  How would you feel about taking a long road trip?

Meditations on the Road - Part One

I realize that the title of this blog has two possible meanings, which may be confusing.  To be clear, I’m not actually meditating while on the road, although I expect to be doing a lot of that later this year.  But I am meditating about what “the road” means to me.  I use quotation marks to suggest the common mythological meaning of the term in American culture rather than the literal definition.  “The road” of modern myth is the great expanse of asphalt etching the North American landscape on which one enters the unknown, transforms, encounters new places and people, has adventures and redefines one’s self.  Being on “the road” is the act of placing yourself in the passenger seats of convertibles piloted by Ulysses, Christopher Columbus and Meriwether Lewis and rocketing down highways and byways with the wind in your hair.  Don Quixote shouts directions from the back seat.  John Cage controls the traffic lights and Yoko Ono paints the signs.  There are no seat belts.

I spent a lot of time on the road – in the more literal sense - when I was growing up, mostly riding in cars with my parents and sometimes my older brother.  Those were the days when air travel was expensive and less widely available, and it was uncommon for whole families to fly together.  Because we lived at various times in different regions of the U.S., all of which were a long way from my parents’ families’ homes in northwest Mississippi, we covered thousands of miles annually driving to and from the Delta.  Our vacation travel was also always by auto.  Some of my clearest memories of childhood trips are not about the destinations themselves, but about the scenery and weather and accomodations along the way.  A motel with a nice pool – that, to me, was paradise.  With all that practice scooting across the earth at highway speeds, it was natural that I continued to travel a lot as an adult, and was never intimidated by driving long distances.

When I was a graduate student, one of my favorite then-contemporary writers was Jack Kerouac.  From his autobiographical novel “On the Road” I gained the impression that hitchhiking across the country was no big deal.  I was inspired by Kerouac to venture out from Ames, Iowa with nothing but a loosely-filled Boy Scout backpack, about $40 in cash and my thumb in the air.  A couple of days later I found myself on the coast of Maine.  How I got there exactly is a long tale and I couldn’t begin to do justice to the subject here.  Suffice it to say that when that trip was over, Kerouac had nothing on me except fame and book royalties.   Naivety can be an asset if it doesn’t kill you, and it’s almost a prerequisite for the best kinds of road trips.  I had naivety in spades back then, and probably still do.

Now I’m preparing for the road trip of a lifetime, as I mentioned in an earlier post.  Only a couple of more months until D-Day.  In the days leading up to that, I’ll have a few more things to say about “the road.”