River Time

How to summarize 5 days and 4 nights on the Rogue River? A little piece of heaven. Serendipity. Spontaneity. Laughter. Danger without consequence. Stargazing. Sun worshipping. Playing in God's water park. Ahhhhhh!

This being Avery's coming of age trip, the center of attention was on her, and she was up to the limelight. Funny, adventuresome, conversational, charming, engaging. Avery's quite the photographer, and some of the photos in the trip album were taken by her.

The village that accompanied her included:

Aunt Laura, the wittiest and most intuitive woman I have ever met in my life. What a keeper. Aunt Laura knows the words to every broadway musical, childhood song, and popular song ever written. She can quote entire poems, and her story of the day she helped her dog get inseminated and her subsequent lesson on the birds and bees when she was ten was a real howler.



Mary, aka Mom, mylifelong friend, who laughed more than any of us, particularly when decked by Uncle Rich as he got up to swim to the bears. Afflicted with a penchant for collecting, her bags grew heavier as the trip went on.



Miss Terry, forever young, athletic, an outdoorswoman extraordinaire. My buddy girl scout leader, and Avery's too. Miss Terry took the first river swim, in the first rapid, cause she was brave enough to start the trip in a kayak.

Jack, who has been on three trips with me now, a great rafter, kayaker, camper, helper, philosopher, and humarist. Jack read three books on the trip, while I drank three bottles of wine. Jack hiked, I sat on the rocks.




Uncle Rich, the kayaking eagle scout who paddled his ducky through every rapid without once taking a swim and was convinced that he could swim across the river to get a closer look at the bears. Perhaps a bit too much of the grapes talking. Richard shared his "breaks pipeline" philosophy: think of breaks in life as an endless pipeline, that never gets empty, and when someone else gets a break, there's still plenty for you.

For photos of the entire trip, visit my photo website by following the link in the right column. I will try to add more details on the trip to this blog soon!

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.

Guides and other guest stories

Gina is a beast. She is 32 and stronger than any two men I know. I watched her cover 50 yards with 5 strokes and one arm Terry out of the river into her duckie. I saw her one arm Burnside into the raft. Richard was impressed. Watch out for Gina. She's tough but motherly. She is shaping Casie into her image. Casie is only 21, and Gina has shown her waterproof mascara along with tough love. We met Gina's dad on the river, and I could see where her upper body strength came from. He was coaching duckies surfing the wave and running with a group called the Orange Torpedos. When they came out of the duckies, the guides instructions were "get back in your boat." No soft stuff with that outfit.

Cassie is a love. She's a former baseball jock, and loves her new job on the river. We didn't know till the end, but we were her first human freight. She'd spent her time rowing equipment and supply boats to earn her stripes. The first night we started exchanging information, and Gina said, "No, Casie, not till the end. You're too used to those day trips." Casie's instructions to the crew are similar to a pilates instructor. "Gimme two forward" "Now Back" "okay, relax." I was proud to be part of her crew going through the picket fences of Sunshine Rapid that have terrorized the river with deaths this summer. We did great! Okay, relax.

Brent is as hairy as he is brawny. He rowed the overweight equipment boat and set up the kitchen every night ahead of the group. He started off giving me grief, but I had him on the ropes myself a few times. Just the very idea that he might be the boy toy of a 58 year old matron made him speechless. What can a river guide say to his paying guest? Poor thing. During the off season, Brent is a football coach, making enough to break even on his gas. Someday he'll get lassoed by the right lass and have his own football team.

Dave is 55 and teaches middle school. He keeps on rowing because if he stops, he might not be able to do it any more. He had a teacher buddy on another trip who played guitar and sang and came to our camp one night. Dave had advertised that we would sing along, but the buddy's songs were five years too young and quite complicated. Do you know more than 4 words of any Neil Young song? Laura did the best of the group, being 5 years younger than most of us. Laura also has a photographic memory when it comes to song lyrics.

Don't know much about Tom. He was on vacation with his girlfriend for the most part, and he left with the first group of guests off the boat. We had some folks on a three day, some on a four day, and us, the five day group, which meant we rested in camp a whole day, a long blessed day.

At night the guides would feed us and then leave us alone. They had their own thing going. Only Avery entered into their inner sanctum. As Gina said, they had bet money that Avery would stay up late and hang with them. Once we got used to the idea that we were on our own in the evenings, it was fine with us. We did, after all, have our own group entertainment, wine to drink, baths to take, and stories to tell.

One night we did skits at the request of Cyric, the 10 year old boy who was both entertainment and irritation. His skits were pretty funny, especially the one about earthquake, tornado and fire. Cyric could be bribed to blow up air mattresses. Avery got hers done with two pieces of gum. When I got a double bed from Brent, it cost me $2 to have Cyric pump it up. Well worth it. For nothing, he would wake people who were being sleepyheads. He would deliver tea to Mary every morning without fee. He also sneaked up and tickled Terry with a piece of grass. It took her a long time to figure out what was crawling on her. I was laughing so loud the whole canyon echoed.

Cyric was with his grandma, two months younger than me, but I wouldn't believe it if I were you. I look much younger. Jan had been a teacher for 25 years, and she was full of well meaning correction, like, "it was funny the first time" and big words of the day. Histrionics was the word of the day when Cyric went crazy about yellow jackets buzzing about him while he was eating. He should talk to Jack, who swells up and can't breath if he gets stung. Apparently the secret to getting good behavior out of Cyric was chips; denial of chips at lunch was worse than death. All that said, Cyric was pretty smart. He did a series of old camera and old movie camera pantomymes with me that cracked me up.

There were two grandparents, Mike and Marilyn, with their 14 year old granddaughters on their annual summer trip. 14 is a tough age for girls. They were mostly silent. Avery opened Danica up toward the end, and Danica also showed me a bracelet weaving stitch. Both Danica and Desiree went out of the duckies in a tough rapid, and after that, they shared a duckie. Good for them for getting back in.

And then there was Amy, Oakland girl, free spirit, about the size of a 10 year old but 36 and counting. She was, of course, vegetarian, and lactose intolerant (not latex intolerant, as I once said). Poor thing. Hard to eat on the river with those two caveats. She was so little, she wore a wet suit the whole trip and still shivered for an hour after a swim or a duckie. After she leaves this trip, she's going north to backpack in the Olympic National Forest, alone. What a role model of independence. She's gone back to school, going to do it right this time, and is studying ecology.

Altogether, a great group to join our forces. Can't say I've had better luck on any river trip.