I'm sitting here writing on the morning of the 9th. Hey, I'm almost caught up on the blog, and I'm back to first person!
July 8 was a terrifc day, but let's back up just a little. There wasn't very much rain on the 7th, but the clouds lingered just enough to cool things just a bit and we can no longer claim to have seen no rain (remember the rain that we did experience previously came at night and we neither felt nor saw it). The weather forecast for the 8th was identical to that of the 7th - hot with a chance of thundershowers - and the day dawned and seemed a carbon copy as well.
Aunt Carolyn wanted so very much to take us canoeing, so the day seemed, and was, as it turned out, perfect for the occassion. We were all up at the crack of 9:30 and ready to roll out of the house at least a half hour before the clock struck noon! How's that for leisure? It took about an hour and a half to get to Akers Ferry, where we had decided to embark on our journey. In the Ozark National Scenic Riverways there are actually several choices of routes and lengths of floats that you can take. Almost all of the routes are are fairly calm, the type that can truly be classified as drifting down a lazy river. Because the rivers are the heart of a national park, the regulations prohibit the removal of downed trees although rumor (and common sense) has it that the canoe operators will sometimes assist mother nature as she works to shift trees and prevent the river from becoming impassable. So, even though the rivers are fairly tame, there are plenty of snags and submerged trees to be on the lookout for.
The arrangement for our float was Dale & Aunt C in a canoe and Riley in a kayak. It's a good thing that Aunty C had an experienced river tourer in her canoe. Yes, I do have 1.5 credits in River Touring from Palomar College! Well, we were drifting merrily along into our second hour and second beer when I sensed that all of the pieces were in just the right place for a safety drill. The current was sweeping strongly across the channel, right into a downed tree. Here we go, wait for it, wait for it, contact; tip; water over the gunwale; all the way over. Yes a perfect capsizing! "Don't lose your paddle." "Hey Riley, grab the cooler and those beer cans."
The canoe was beautifully wedged under the tree. There was a convenient gravel bar for recovery. Riley was ahead and able to recover the floating debris. I swear that it was a safety drill. I planned it. No kidding. We were hot and the dip in the drink cooled us off. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
A little farther down the river we were joined by a dog. He was some sort of hunting dog, maybe a setter-wiemeraner mix. Just as we passed a group of people who had pulled up on a gravel bar to fish, the dog joined us in a race to see who could get down the river the fastest. He was a very good swimmer and in great shape. At first he was chasing Riley in the kayak, just as a dog might chase a car or someone on a bicycle. Then he seemed to become more interested in swimming in front of the canoe. We veered to the right, he veered to the right, we turned left, he turned left. He kept this up for a mile or more until we finally got ahead of him and he lost interest. Then he just wandered off, with very little apparent concern as to where he was or where he should be.
Next stop was Cave Spring. You could learn more about it by looking on wikipedia than I could tell you, so I'll let you do that, but I will say that it is a great stop on a hot day, and very popular. There were perhaps 15 - 20 people stopped at the cave when we arrived. There were also clouds growing overhead; actually they had been accumulating for a little while, but seemed to be well behind us until we stopped at the cave. We were there for about 10-15 minutes and during the course of that time, the clouds thickened and began to thunder. We once again headed downstream, passing lots of people. As the thunder grew louder and the clouds grew thicker, Auntie C's determination to get downstream grew more purposeful.
It wasn't long before the clouds opened up into a torrential downpour. There was visible lightning and of course, thunder, but it wasn't so close to us at the moment to become a huge safety concern. Still, Auntie C and I were paddling away to get to Pulltite, which is where we got off the river. We were well ahead of all the people we had passed and that included Riley, whom we hadn't seen in at least 15 or 20 minutes, so we pulled up onto a gravel bar in the puring rain, to await his arrival. After sitting there for 5 minutes or more, we saw the two yellow blades of a kayak paddle, then we began hearing a voice. It sounded a bit like he was yelling, but because of the rain we could not distinguish exactly what we were hearing. As he got closer, the sound became clearer and clearer until it was obvious that Riley was casually paddling downstream, in a heavy downpour, singing The Banana Boat Song. Day-O, Day-O, Daylight comes and me wanna go home! Harry Belafonte would have been proud.
When we finally arrived at Pulltite, the rain had not let up at all, and we were completely drenched but comfortable because the ambient temperature was still in the 70's or 80's and we had been paddling. Once we stopped paddling we began to get cold. Auntie C climbed aboard the ancient schoolbus that was to be used to shuttle us back to Akers Ferry and immediately asked, "Does anyone have a martini?" When I got on the bus, I mentioned to either Riley or Aunt Carolyn, that the last time I was on a bus of that vintage, I was working as a carney. One of the other passengers instantly locked onto that comment and showed a great deal of curiousity. When he told his girlfriend that Riley and I had temped as carnies this summer, she was even more curious and conversational about the topic. She reccommended that we all read the book Water For Elephants.
When we got back to Akers Ferry, we actually got to turn on the heat in the truck! We stopped in Eminence for dinner and the restaurant actually had a bar, so of course Carolyn and Dale ordered martinis. This created quite a stir. The bartender personally came over to ask what kind of martinis we wanted. I know nothing at all about martinis, except that I don't want ice in it, so I defered all other questions to Aunt Carolyn, who said that we wanted traditional, dry, gin martinis. As we were leaving the restaurant, the bartender, a man of about 50, was sitting out on the balcony. He called to us and asked, "How were the martinis?" We told him that they were fine, and that if we were back in town, we would come in for another. I honestly think that he had never made a martini before and that he looked it up in the recipe book before coming over in the first place to ask us how we wanted them. The martinis were fine. Missouri is the land of light beer. Maybe a shot of something - chased with a light beer.
That's about all the news that is fit to report. I'm now up to date, except for this morning (the 9th), but I have just slept past 9:00, eaten, done a little laundry and typed this blog entry. Now I'm current up to the last instant!
Dale
Fabulous! I want to go visit Auntie C! Happy trails...
ReplyDeleteLove, Ann