We drove in silence, well out into the farm country of the Snake River Plain. It was Memorial Day, and we were supposed to be heading to a family cemetery to meet Toni’s parents at the gravesite of her younger brother, now gone some 30 years.

When I was considerably younger and living approximately 2,000 miles east of my current Montana address, I had an experience that helped shape my ongoing fly fishing journey in ways I couldn’t really appreciate at the time.