Marcus Aurelius, in his Meditations, wrote to do everything with a purpose, to always ask “is this necessary,” and to always remember that death comes to us all – and it comes quickly. I spend a lot of time thinking about this lately – about what consumes my time, what consumes my thoughts, and how many generations it will take to forget I was here. Pondering things like this makes one reconsider how they spend their time on earth. So, when my son called and wanted to do an overnight fishing trip – of course I said yes.

We would spend one day fishing some new streams – little blue mountain lines tucked just south of the West Virginia border. We’d spend the next day in the Virginia Highlands on streams I already knew.

I can sum up Day 1 in a story. The setting is south of Southern West Virginia. The day is hot. The roads are remote, dusty, and forgotten. Here and there you find a parked car, an empty truck, surrounded by miles of emptiness, and no person to be seen. Twice we found entire communities of small houses in the forest, padlocks on the doors, boards on the windows, abandoned….like little hippy communes from the 60’s and everyone vanished. Up one mountain, down another. Every stream was too flat, too warm, and contained no fish. Up another mountain, seeking the next waypoint, hoping it will be better.

At some point, the gravel road forked. This was not Frost’s Yellow Wood. One fork seemed to dead-end in the backyard of house, in the middle of absolutely nowhere. The other went down the mountain a bit past some camps. One camp caught our eye. It was painted red, had a front porch, was decorated with various signs and adornments. Think Cracker Barrel meets Snoopy’s doghouse. The yard was small and dusty. In the middle of the yard was an old lazy-boy. One of those brown velvety ones with flowers from the early 80’s. In the chair sat a woman. A woman with a cigarette in one hand, and a beer in the other. A woman who might know more than Apple Maps, who was clearly not up to date on these particular gravel roads.

“Who you boys looking for?” came the greeting as she approached the open passenger side window. My son leaned back..trying to disappear. “Where you boys from?” Was the follow up. “I’m from Right Here” was her answer to her own question. I told her we were looking for trout streams. She commenced to detailing the local stream stocking schedule, told us we were too late, her freezer had one about “this big” in it, and “don’t y’all fish those ponds down the road…those are posted…don’t even try it.”

After the deep discourse in fishing, she gave us some navigational advice. As we drove away I took one last look back toward her establishment. That’s when I saw the sign over the porch…. “Cooper’s Love Shack.” Yep. There you have it.

Fifteen miles later, over a mountain and around a dozen 180 degree turns…we hit pavement. We tried one more stream. No fish – just a doe in an abandoned house along a stream. That was it. I’d seen some things over the years. This day won the prize. No way I was camping anywhere close to here. I looked at the map…we had been in Poor Valley. We never looked back.

We drove about 90 minutes west to a stream that has never let me down. A stream that starts at close to 5000 feet before adding multiple tributaries and finally cascading through a steep canyon full of waterfalls and plunge pools. It’s what we who seek wild trout would call Paradise.

We got there minutes before dark and set up camp at the truck. Sleeping next to a waterfall was a nice way to replace the dusty memories of ghost towns, endless gravel switchbacks, and barren streams. It whispered that tomorrow would be better.

And it was.

Very first cast Sam landed a nice wild rainbow. Things were looking up. So up we went. From plunge pool to plunge pool we leap-frogged our way up the canyon. Watching each other land trout after trout.

We set a goal of fifty fish. We didn’t quite get there…but we didn’t care. We were experiencing a red letter day. This was the kind of day you go back to in your mind over the years. Not because of the number of fish to the net, but because of the crystal clear water, the mountain laurel in bloom, the seamless drifts, the tight lines, the sun on the rocks, the cool air down the canyon, and the moments shared between Father and Son.

Paradise Canyon. That’s a long way from Poor Valley. But we wouldn’t trade either day for a dozen more fish. This was the kind of day Marcus Aurelius spoke of. Time spent with a purpose. Time spent necessarily. Time that will be remembered by those who were there, or that read the story here, a long time from now. May Providence give us many more days like these…and may we be eternally thankful for the ones we are granted.