Mile 0  This afternoon I’ll be making the same drive I’ve been making for over six years. Down the east coast, from New England to Northern Virginia. It is the same drive in that the point of departure and the destination don’t change. However, there are virtually an infinite amount of ways to make the trip. The safest bet for daytime driving involves skipping the most congested parts of Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey.

And this also means I’ll be driving by some familiar watersheds. Like state lines, they are somewhat arbitrary benchmarks of progress. They’re more fun, though. Who has ever spent a long weekend on a state line? And state lines don’t carry the sort of memories that help a ten-hour drive pass by either.

Mile 90  On the Mass Pike, there are swamps. I didn’t know how swampy New England was until I moved up here. Looking at these ponds, I can’t help but think that there are some enormous pickerel and perch lurking right off the side of the turnpike. Only an hour and a half in, there was a time when I was ambitious in thinking I’d make the trip just to poke around fishy looking water like this.

Yet these bodies of water, like so many in and around where I’ve called home for the last six years, are destinations I haven’t made time for. Driving is a great time for alternately making grandiose plans and contemplating those you’ve previously defaulted on.

Mile 119  In downtown Hartford, the Connecticut River doesn’t look anything like it does up at the Canadian border. Channelized, broad, and urban; it is a far cry from the cold and quick tailwaters found in the north woods of New Hampshire. My first taste of New England trout fishing came below First Connecticut lake, catching feisty rainbows and searching for landlocked salmon. The ponds around the Connecticut system, with their native brook trout, are a treat. Tall pines, lonesome moose, and weaving creeks are upstream, but here only concrete overpasses weave over the slow and deep river.

There is a fun mental game I like to play with familiar river systems as I pass over them while on a road trip. I pretend there is some thermal-resistant, dam-jumping fish that starts in the headwaters and swims at hyper speed down through the towns and cities on its way to the ocean. Long periods in the car will make you create fictional superfish.

Mile 252  At just about the halfway point between my current and former home is the Delaware River. Separating Pennsylvania from New York, the convenient location has made it a destination to meet up with fishing partners over the years. Of course, the trout fishing would be very marginal where I-84 crosses the main stem. But a short drive north places an east coast angler on some remarkable water. There are more tailwaters, more wide rivers, and more big fish than most places on this half of the country. Couple that with some of the historic Catskill rivers, and the area I’m flying through provides some of the best fishing today and in all of American angling lore.

I often wonder how many of the obscure rivers and streams I drive over these days were once thriving fisheries. Trout, salmon, shad, sturgeon – the whole east coast buffet. Overfishing, pollution, and even the roads I’m driving on probably long ago decimated some waters that would have easily earned blue-ribbon status today.

Mile 344  Driving south from Scranton, there is a lot of good fishing. But when you live in the Mid Atlantic, you have to pick your battles. At this point on the drive I pass under I-80. Northern Pennsylvania’s major east-west thoroughfare took me to the spring creeks around State College. It also would help me get out west to head up to Erie’s steelhead tributaries. It is a good thing, to have some spectacular fishing destinations be a “long” two or three hours’ drive. And even better for these to be destinations because what is close to home is also outstanding.

The gas stations, restaurants, and roadside peculiarities in places like this become engrained in your consciousness. I know where there are Sheetz. I know where there are Sheetz that I don’t have to drive more than a few hundred yards off I-81 to get to. Little things like gas stations with above-average food make all the difference while out fishing.

Mile 450  Nostalgia kicks into overdrive on Route 15 south of Harrisburg. 450 miles from home, and I feel like I belong. A turn west in Dillsburg, and in less than 15 minutes I can be on the Yellow Breeches or the Letort. These are my old stomping grounds. This is where I lived for over five years, so the streams are literally part of my life. This period of life was the closest I’ve come to being a trout bum. My car smelled like waders, and there wasn’t a hatch I missed. Leaving was hard, but it was the right thing to do.

More than any place I’ve ever called home, coming back to the Cumberland Valley for the first time years ago elicited real homesickness. I’ve put in more wading boot miles here than anywhere else on this planet. But I also put down roots in many ways. Coming back, and the eventual departures, in years since hasn’t been so difficult. I went from coming here to fish, to living here, to living far from here. It hasn’t changed my love for the creeks, the trout, or the people I call friends.

Mile 494  Only about a half hour after passing by the northern tip of the Blue Ridge, my route takes me up alongside the Catoctin Mountains. I actually drive over Big and Little Hunting Creeks, but the elevation of the highway and the density of the vegetation make it difficult to see the streams themselves. As a teenager I learned that craning my neck to try and catch a glimpse of the flowing water can lead me precariously close to the guard rail.

This area, with easy access and numerous angling opportunities, was very much a training ground. For fishing, driving, and a whole lot more. The closer I get to where I grew up, the more people enter the fishing memories: Friends I still keep in touch, even fish with. Mischief and maturation. Life circumstances discussed on the river, but more often on these roads.

Mile 531  I’m at my destination, for all intents and purposes. Although I’ve had about enough of driving, there are a few waters that flicker in and out of my thoughts as I get into arrival mode. I’ve just crossed the Potomac, a river I can’t wait to get more familiar with in the near future. Leesburg’s Big Spring Creek isn’t someplace I’ve ever been, though I’ve long wondered about the water and the potential for Loudoun County trout. If I wasn’t going to head towards DC to the east, I could continue south into the Shenandoah. Smallmouth bass and mountain brook trout are only a few more hours that way. I’m passing subdivision ponds and creeks with bass, bluegill, and catfish that reach sizes that would scare the dog walkers if they only knew.

This area has changed more in the last decade than anywhere I’ve been in the past ten hours. But I suppose I’ve changed a lot in the past ten years, as well. I’ve had ten hours and seven states to think about and understand that. There is nothing quite like being by yourself to get the introspective juices flowing. With only the radio, your thoughts, and the scenery flying by its easy to slip into wistfulness. I highly suggest it. It is a good thing.

It is also good to remember that the roads and rivers keep on going.