THE MOST BEAUTIFUL PLACE EVAH. AND A RIVER RUNS THROUGH IT. GO FIGURE.

This is the river running behind my writer’s hermitage (of a kind) in Big Sky, Montana. It is perhaps the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen, no exaggeration meant or intended.

Glorious is a word that comes to mind staring out the back door to the Gallatin River and its still snowy banks.

I came here to write. If I can’t write here, I don’t think I can write anywhere. This is the place the Muses come to ski, hike and fly fish. I’ve lit the fire, cast the net, and laid out their favorite chardonnay. So …

Which reminds me — seeing as how Jesus is on the brain as well, it being Holy Week and all — of something Norman McLean once said:

In our family, there was no clear line between religion and fly fishing. We lived at the junction of great trout rivers in western Montana, and our father was a Presbyterian minister and a fly fisherman who tied his own flies and taught others. He told us about Christ’s disciples being fishermen, and we were to assume, as my brother and I did, that all first-class fishermen on the Sea of Galilee were fly fishermen and that John, the favorite, was a dry-fly fisherman.

Seems to me that the fish, these days, are biting.
Hope I brought the right flies.