Saturday, July 21, 2018

Travel decisions....

Robert Frost wrote about travel. In his most famous piece, “Road not taken”, he ended by saying “I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.”


Writing this on Delta getting ready to leave a conference I attended in Jacksonville, FL, my mind is fast forwarding to another jet I’ll be boarding this next Wednesday.  I have traveled many places and I can say they were fun. Some more exciting than others. But like Frost, this Wednesday I’ll be traveling down a road that is not traveled so much. Unlike the crowded beaches of the east coast (which I dearly love) or even the Appalachian Mountains that I sit at the base of in the foothills, Montana takes me to a place of solitude that has made all the difference to me. Waking up at the base of the Elkhorn Mountains lookin up at its 9000 feet summits, then looking to the river that Lewis & Clark traversed years after Jefferson said Go West to watching the eagle soar along the banks of long written about rivers.

What is it about the quiet fall of the waters on the Missouri with canyons on each side of your boat enveloping you physically and even spiritually as you realize that only a divine creator could use his brush strokes to make something so significant. It’s hard to describe how the snow-melt waters of the Dearborn River intersect with the might MO. While this road has taken me to a peaceful place over and over, the excitement that comes with a fly line that goes from needing mending to briskly leaving your float boat with the amazing colorful rainbow or brown on the end of your line.

Montana is less traveled than the average place to vacation. But the views, the waters, the mountains, and the friends Ive made have made all the difference. So with a sigh, as I prepare to go back to Montana, I can say, this incredible state “has made all the difference” to me.

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