Life 2.0: "Spots of Time"

Day 57 marks the completion of our USA leg. The end mirrors the beginning—three bags loaded onto a hotel trolley.

The only difference?

We've added an Orvis fishing rod, a collage of photographs, and a heart full of memories.

Alaska, the last frontier, offered a distinct adventure, but it was Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming that truly captured my soul. Never have I been in a place so deeply reminiscent of my childhood on a rural farm, surrounded by cattle, fields of maize, and the constant presence of wildlife. The people we encountered were always engaging, grounded in the rhythms of nature.

This part of the journey was about hiking in Yellowstone National Park, casting flies in rivers pulled straight from A River Runs Through It, and returning to Sutton Bay for upland shooting and golf—a gentleman's journey.

Norman Maclean’s A River Runs Through It, immortalized by the 1992 film starring Brad Pitt, tells the story of two brothers, Paul (Brad Pitt) and Norman (Craig Sheffer), growing up in rural Montana. They spend much of their youth fly fishing, under the guidance of their minister father. As time passes, Norman leaves for college, while his rebellious brother, Paul, stays behind, finding trouble. When Norman returns, they resume their fishing trips, reflecting on where life has taken them and where they are headed.

In the book, Maclean refers to what the poet William Wordsworth calls “spots of time.” Maclean says “…it is really fishermen who experience eternity compressed into a moment. No one can tell what a spot of time is, until suddenly the whole world is a fish and the fish is gone.”

Our own journey in the Big Sky Country was filled with its unique “spots of time”

... the rustle of the pheasant before the flying dragon fills the sky
… the ripple in the water before the brown trout takes the fly
… the golf ball, teetering on the edge of the cup, before it drops.

Twenty days of early mornings, long days, and late nights. But as Robin S. Sharma writes in The Leader Who Had No Title, “There will be plenty of time to sleep once you are dead.”

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