"We get three sorts and periods of enjoyment out of a hunting trip. The first is when the plans are being discussed and the outfit assembled; this is the pleasure of anticipation. The second is the enjoyment of the actual trip itself; and the third is the pleasure of retrospection when we sit around a blazing wood-fire and talk over the incidents and adventures of the trip. There is no general rule to know which of the three gives the keenest joy. I can think of a different expedition in which each sort stands out in pre-eminence. Even if the trip has been exceptionally hard and the luck unusually bad, the pleasures of anticipation and preparation cannot be taken away, and frequently the retrospect is the more satisfactory because of the difficulties and discomforts surmounted."

--Kermit Roosevelt, "The Happy Hunting-Grounds," 1920

Right now, on this miserably chilly and gray day in Massachusetts, it is definitely the retrospect that keeps the hunting fires kindled in my heart.

I am, though, "assembling the outfit," and soon I hope to shift into anticipation and then into the enjoyment of life on safari itself, in the wilderness, away from the pressures, cares and many disappointments of modern life.

Kermit had it right; it is hard to say which stage is the keenest fun. Each stage builds itself, with all of the others, into the hunter's life.

Of course, the anticipation of any hunt is a big part of it, though I am not a part of the "quality hunt" crowd. Results count, or there would be no point in going, or calling it hunting instead of a vacation. 6 months and counting!

I hear you

Chilly and gray has been on the menu at my house for weeks on end. In fact we could turn this into a "How Chilly and Gray Was It" thread. I'll go first.

It was so chilly and gray that...

As of Sunday afternoon there wasn't a single piece of spent brass left at the Elmo House. Every last one is loaded and ready to go. This has never happened before.

Elmo
Presently in period One of first African Hunt