What happens on the river, gets put on the blog

Richard and Laura are a hoot. She's witty, he's the practical boy scout, and they are both cool parents. They had been through the wine country on their way to Grants Pass, and mostly they brought us champagne, a bottle for every evening bathing in the river. Those evenings were the occasion of much deep wisdom. One evening five bears crossed the hillside across the river from camp. Richard became obsessed with swimming across to them. Laura knew he had a low tolerance for wine, so she continually sat him back down. "I know I can swim across there...I want to see them close up" he would repeat. Finally, he staggered to his feet, and fell right down, taking Mary smack onto the sand beach with him. They wallowed in the river, laughing too hard to get up, for 15 minutes, after which it was clear that nobody was swimming across that river than night.
Richard's taste in wine is toward the sweet. He says he can buy great beer and great scotch, but not necessarily wine. He was in charge of refreshments for a work meeting. The guys wandered in, admiring the selection of beers and scotch. Then they noticed the box of white zinfandel. Immediately the box was opened and the bladder became the object of a game of catch. On the river, though, Richard, all wine is exquisite. Not to worry.

Laura was usually the first one in camp for coffee in the mornings. I would wander in blindly looking for the pot, and she would greet me with a one liner, like "did you know there is a ring around uranus?" Her humor about folks was always genuinely funny, not biting or sharp. I think I might be in love with you, Laura!



Terry and Avery waged an ongoing river battle, trying to tip each other out of boats and usually ending up in a mutually agreeable swim. Avery accused Terry of peeing upriver on many occasions, and Terry had a list of river experiences Avery must have before the end of the trip. Once Terry tried to get Avery's bottoms off, but without much luck. Both of them became experienced kayakers, although Terry got baptized in the first rapid of the trip and drowned her camera.

Both of them are camera buffs, and some of the river photos in my album are courtesy of them taking my camera for a walk. Of particular interest are the newt closeups. It's a good thing I got them to stop fighting over my camera, or there wouldn't have been any photos. At one point, I was going to take it away from those kids.

Jack looks like the most unlikely kayaker, but he is the most experienced and unflappable. As Richard pointed out, when Richard hit a rapid, he was paddling with a frenzy, while Jack just slowly cruised through, making only minor corrections in his course. He never went out of the duckie once, not even when surfing the waves. Evenings and lunches, he was reading his book, oblivious to the world until the wine or champagne came out. Then we got to hear his wisdom. Easy to be with, that's Jack. Seems like he was always there when I needed a hand. He gave Avery the gift of self assessment when it was his turn to hand out advice.

Avery mingled with everyone, moving from group to group with the greatest of ease. That's my girl, Avery! She got a lot of sound advice from all of us, like Try new things, believe in the breaks pipeline, be strong and don't take any guff off of guys. Since this was like her quincienera, she can now get married. She has a distorted view of the river, though, since she wore blue blocker glasses the entire trip.

Mary's got rocks. And more rocks. My RV has a river bag full of them now. Avery stated emphatically that if Mary collected rocks, Avery was not carrying her bag for her. She was right...I am! Mary's a pretty irrepresible collector of things. Rocks, twigs, leaves, found art. The one collection that I really liked was berries, until they turned liquid anyway.

Laura said Mary looked like the woman soothsayer in the beginning of the lion king. She had her colorful pareo tied around her waist and walked with a big stick that Dave found for her when she left her Komperdels in my RV. You know, Laura's right. I can hear the music. But mostly, Mary laughed a lot, a infectuous cackle reminiscent of the Burnsides. It's a good sound.

And me, I just came to laugh and cause trouble. I deemed myself a self appointed rescuer of swimmers. There was just one problem with my technique. The rescued always ended up lying on top of me in the boat, somewhere below my waist. Oh well. I suppose I could refine my techniques. Once there were more than enough paddlers, and I became Bow maiden. Terry asked me to spread my feet so she could photo down river. Right at that moment, we hit a wave, and smack! came the cold water, right where my torso ends and my legs begin. This bow maiden stuff is not for sissies. I only went out of the boat once to swim a rapid. I thought I was going to die. Every second under water is like a minute, and when I finally sputtered to the top, I was done with swimming rapids for the trip. Casie did teach me to dive ungracefully off the front of her boat. She said we had more lessons to go. I think maybe more than she has counted on.

One night in camp, we watched a "movie" of some campers in their tents at the next site. So on the last night of our camp, at the request of my buddies, I starred in my own tent movie. It was x rated. What can I say?

The river is a wonderful thing, nature, water, sky, stars. The stars at night are brilliant. Once I woke up and saw a pulsing cluster of stars in the milky way. My kidney twin Terry was up too. She saw it and confirmed I was not crazy. Later in the trip, at the McDonald observatory, I saw a video on nebulas. That has to be what it was, stars being born in a storm of dust and gas right there over the Rogue River. The Rogue Wilderness has no light pollution and very little human pollution.
All in all, a great trip, another river under my belt, and one I would gladly return to. Awesome.