Category: Uncategorized

It is, to date, the coldest day of the year in West Windsor, VT.  Our outdoor thermometer registers -12 degrees F but that does not include the windchill factor.  Though the cold wind is blowing outside, we are sitting by our woodstove, our only source of heat in our new house, with the indoor temperature reading 72 degrees.  It’s hard to fathom an 84 degree difference between inside and outside.

The cold wind does not keep me from thinking about our emerging plans for paddling another 100+ miles on the Ohio River this summer.  Karen and I spoke on the phone last weekend and we began our planning for 2016.  I now have my flight booked on May 28.  I’ll fly to Cleveland where Karen will pick me up, our faithful red canoe Wonder atop her van. It is a high point of my trip to see Karen rounding the bend to the arrivals doors of whatever airport I am flying into.  It is then that the adventure of the year begins.

Last year we were both particularly tired by the time we got started on our trip.  In the van on the way from the airport to the Ohio River we were reminiscing on previous trips.  We ended up laughing so hard we nearly had to pull off the highway.  Moments like that are what remind us why it is so important that we do this crazy and wild thing each year.

We ended in Madison, Indiana, last year.  We pulled in just about an hour before a deluge hit the river.  The kindness of strangers once again helped us find a nice motel with a typical large “Southern” style porch from which we could watch the rain with gratitude that we were not out on the river nor trying to set up a tent along its banks.

We will find our way to Madison again on May 28 and perhaps pitch a tent in the yard of the kind man who let us leave our canoe at his house while we stayed in the motel.  Or maybe we will stay in the motel again.  Either way, we will be back on the banks of the mighty Ohio River in just over 3 months, wondering what adventures will present them and what kind of people will greet us and cheer us on down the river.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was when we moved to Santa Fe in 2004 that I first learned about the Camino.  I was intrigued by such pilgrimages that drew people from all over the world to Spain and France to walk on ancient paths to a common destination.  However, I did not feel that I had to do it.  I still don’t feel that I have to do though when my daughter mentioned it the other week I did volunteer to walk with her some day.  And maybe someday I will walk part of it with our friend Alexander Shaia who is leading a walk this fall.

But for the time being I am happy with my own version of the Camino.  I’ll call it my Rio as that is the Spanish word for river. The Rio has become a powerful week in my life.  Sharing this experience every year with my good friend Karen Yeversky is a large part of the beauty of the week.  We paddle together, much as the walkers tale strides along the various routes of the Camino. Sometimes we are quiet.  Sometimes we are reflective.  Sometimes we debate and wonder and make up why things are the way they are.  Sometimes we laugh until we cry.  Always, always, we test our physical and emotional endurance.  And every year we end up further down the Ohio River. no matter what.  I love to write about our journey and usually I hope to do that on the river.  But this year I found it hard to write anything on my little iPhone more than an update of the highlights of a particular day or two.

So now, having been back for nearly two weeks, I will start to write some more detailed reflections on our powerful week in the gorgeous Ohio Valley, the people we met who helped us, the animals, birds and flora we saw and, this year in particular, the food we discovered.  The food was a hit on Facebook.  I think some people didn’t believe we were actually camping.  It was fun to find the seasonal floating restaurants along the more populated parts of the river.  We just never know what we will find on our annual journey.

In the weeks to follow, I hope to be faithful to our journey by recounting stories that let you know why it has become so important.  What I fear is that no matter how articulate I may be, you may not fully be able to experience the power.  I assume this is similar to my friends’ stories as they recount their steps along the Camino.  In the end, each journey is our own.  I suspect  that even Karen and I, though paddling in the same canoe on the same river, have different versions of the beauty of the week.

Today was really too awesome to describe in detail on my iPhone but in brief:  we were drenched by 7:30, we had a great breakfast in Rising Sun,Indiana, we had an accidental private tour of a harp makers shop, we paddles another 26 miles in mostly sun and some wind, on and off difficult, we found a nice couple by resting on their dock and they gave us a needed lighter as we had given ours up to a smoker in need, and we are now camped in a beautiful marina under a shelter which is good because it is due to rain tonight!  Whew.  

it was only drizzling when we headed out from the camp ground but before we got to Rising Sun , IN, just two miles down, we were soaked and got out to find a cafe!  We are now sitting finishing it up.  I had to order biscuits and gravy since we are in the south!  We have paddled a total of 80 miles and this is the fist day the rain has taken us off the river.  We are soaked through but our spirits are still high!

One more update:  we paddled past these fascinating composite rocks on the river…different from a anything we have seen.  Oh, and one more thing…we enjoyed fried Danish in Aurora, IN, yesterday.  Also pictured here.

We just made it to the 490 mile point on the Ohio River. That’s the one half mark on the Ohio with 740 miles in total that we have peddled since we left western New York 14 years ago. We still are having pretty weather and are making about 25 miles a day. Here’s a picture of our little memorial to our momentous day the 490 mile mark on a 980 mile river.

24 hours from now, Karen and I will be sitting on the banks of the Ohio River, wondering what the week will bring us.  We already know that it promises a lot of rain.  We are OK with that as at least it will be warm rain.  We remember, not fondly, a few trips in the spring and fall when we were pretty sure we were going to get hypothermia.  So a warm summer rain works.

We just talked on the phone, discussing the final arrangements and the kindness of friends who will help us with the logistics.  Seems each year that we trust more that things will unfold as they should.  Yes, we are both excited.

At 4 am tomorrow, John and I will leave to go to Logan airport.  My excitement for the trip will overcome my desire to stay in bed, I am sure.  So, here’s to a safe and fun-filled week.  Karen, I’m glad beyond words that we are friends and that our friendship has outlasted major moves, job changes and the many things are can separate friends over decades.

I have often said that if someone can think it up, someone is already doing it.  Well, I never would have thought up the concept of canoe dancing but obviously others have thought it and done it.  As the ice recedes from the Connecticut River and my eyes and heart set themselves on another river, The Ohio, I look forward to a week of paddling with Karen as we make our way down to the Mississippi.  We engage at this time of the year in the practical planning.  How will I get to here? What city to fly into so Karen can fetch me on her way from Jamestown with Wonder, our canoe, atop her van?  What cool new item of clothing might I find to take this year?  Or interesting new dehydrated dinner?

As I ponder these practical things, up on my Facebook comes a promotion for the Ohio River Paddle Fest which we hope to attend at the end of our week this year.  The promotion shows a canoe dancer!  Yes, you read that right.  There are people out there who dance with their canoes!  It feels akin to wheelchair dancing in that the dancer is part of an inanimate object that takes on a life of its own in the gestalt of the dance.  Don’t believe me?  Click here to check this one out and then google “canoe dance” to find more.

I doubt Karen and I will become professional canoe dancers but I can imagine that if we find a bend in the river where no one is watching (and there are PLENTY of them), we might just see what we can do.  Also, there needs to be no wind.  That might kill any idea of trying this as there is seldom of time there is no wind on that river.

Canoe dancing?  Who’d a thunk it?  What else do people do with their canoes that we don’t know about?

Those of us who live in the northeast feel as though we have been in the grasp of the White Witch from The Chronicles of Narnia for months.  We just can’t shake winter.  There have maybe been two days in the last two weeks where the temperatures have been sustained at above freezing long enough to get a decent flow of sap going.  We put out sap buckets on a couple of the trees on our new property in Vermont.  We have collected maybe four gallons of sap, enough to boil down to one tenth of a gallon of syrup.  Of course, we will wait until we have a little more before starting that process.  It’s just a childhood fancy of mine to boil my own sap.  We’ll get what we get.  But for many in Vermont it is a livelihood so I hope that when it starts flowing consistently it will keep it up well into April.  I don’t know how those who depend on the weather for their incomes sleep at night!

So, while we wait for the snow to melt and the snow drops and crocuses to emerge, I look into other paddling blogs. I find interesting stories like the young people who make kayaks out of soda bottles to educate about the environment.  On the other hand, I find that we could abandon Karen’s trusty, soft-sided cooler and invest in a high-tech cooler by Yeti that costs over $300.  Hum, I think we’ll stick to the old one.  And I cross the as yet still frozen Connecticut River awaiting anxiously the day that I see the ice break up and float away.  Then I will believe that we will actually have another week to paddle the Ohio River this summer!

Meanwhile, the low today, March 22, is supposed to be 7 degees.  At least it is 7 above zero for a change.