This July I took my 8 y/o boy up to Wyoming for a long week of fishing. We did a similar trip last year after I was 12 minutes late taking my COVID test at work (they gave me the next week off!). With more time to plan we were a bit more ambitious. We loaded up the dirt bikes and camping gear in my old Tacoma and made the 16 hour drive straight through in one day. Lil dude is a road warrior.
We spent a couple days camping near Cody with some friends who had quite the setup at a public campground--they hauled a full size refrigerator/freezer--had some of the best phad thai of my life, which seems mutually exclusive with sagebrush Wyoming camping.
Generally we'd drive to where the good road ran out, and then unload the dirt bikes and go up some more, and then get off and hike and/or fish up into the wilderness. We only saw two piles of bear shit all week which was relieving. Never competed for water with anyone else. Would spend all day out in the sun whooping it up together. Wilson caught all 4 species of trout and a whitefish on Rapala's, although most of the time he prefers to build driftwood navies and sail them through riffles for their sea trials.
We had one absolutely incredible day in a place that has become one of my favorites, with craggy peaks giving way to grassy foothills and a verdant streambed piercing the arid country. One hole I missed two nice fish right at the start, and then Wilson came in with his Rapala and stuck a couple. One large fish remained in view and we tried to catch him for 45 minutes, and finally he ate a big drake fly on it's maiden drift.
Around day 6 or so I realized we could live in a state of indefinite summer for quite some time. I didn't want to go home--we were in heaven having a ball together. And he was out there, doing it, sunburnt and bug bit with no complaints. He honestly didn't even slow me down that much. Towards the end of the day he'd always push me to keep going, "just one more fish Daddy!" with the sun falling behind the mountains and the bears thinking about stirring. It was a stark reminder that, like each day, eventually the sand will have all run through the hourglass, and that these are the times I will have cherished the most.