Faithful Travelers: A Father. His Daughter. A Fly-Fishing Journey of the Heart

In Final Rounds James Dodson told the poignant story of the golf trip of a lifetime with his terminally ill father. Now armed with a fly-fishing rod and reel he embarks with his seven-year-old daughter on an equally memorable journey across America in search of clear-running streams swift elusive fish and the eternal truths that only nature can provide.. It has been said that life is what happens while youre waiting to go fishing. Only weeks after his eleven-year marriage abruptly ended in an amicable divorce James Dodson decided to go on a fly-fishing pilgrimage west. His goal: to heal his wounded spirit and explain as best he could the vagaries of life and love to his beautiful precocious seven-year-old daughter Maggie.. With his beat-up truck Old Blue and his aging retriever Amos Dodson and Maggie travel without plans or reservations following where the spirit--and the lure of Americas mighty rivers--leads them on their way to one of Americas grandest treasures: Yellowstone National Park. On the way Dodson discovers a great deal about fishing about America and about the special relationship that exists only between a father and daughter. . They travel from the Adirondacks once a fly-anglers haven to the mist-shrouded Niagara Falls. From the Michigan lakes where Ernest Hemingway roamed as a boy to small-town county fairs. From the majesty of Mount Rushmore to the mysticism of Harneys Peak where Black Elk had his legendary visions to finally the fly-fishermans paradise of the San Juan River. Together father and daughter are bound by a tie as resilient and unpredictable as a fly-fishermans line. For as the emotional waters in which they fish become ever more turbulent Maggies unspoken feelings of grief anger and blame begin to surface--a depth of hurt that forces Dodson to face his own unacknowledged pain and worse leaves him feeling helpless to make everything all right in his daughters life again. . Yet if fly-fishing has taught James Dodson anything it is the rewards of patience of following the wisdom of the course of the stream the unexpected revelations reflected in still pools and of course an abiding belief in plain dumb luck. With a little of each these faithful travelers will find their way home again.. Literate honest and deeply observant Faithful Travelers is a beautiful meditation on the bond between parent and child and the nature of love and loss. In Faithful Travelers James Dodson proves that sometimes life isnt what happens while youre waiting to go fishing: sometimes it happens while youre there.