Unbroken Silence

Every hour or so I check for email from the spot device. Was pretty cool to get a point while they were in flight to the lake. Then got a wayward point that had them half way down the river before other points have put them in the same spot for two nights, which is possible. About every half hour I check my watch and subtract 4 hours and wonder if they've gotten any sleep or if it's raining or what Reese thinks about fighting his first 15 pound chum. About every evening I sit down at the computer and edit film for the unguided production of Pongo 2010, which puts me with them, on the river bank setting up the tent, in the moments of boyish frivolity and laughter and the moments of homesickness and wondering why for 11 months you build this up to untouchable expectation when all it is is standing in cold water with little sleep for hour after hour of casting, when even catching a great rainbow doesn't make it worth it. Of course experience has taught you that those empty moments are caused by fatigue so deep you know you could lay down on the tundra in your waders and sleep for hours, and that its all part of the adventure, part of wilderness, part of you. And when your not there, you sure wish you were. Awfully quite in the lower 48 this week.