Pretty much back to my regular routine now, so it was a nice slow morning for me. Once up and about there was time to read the paper and a little bit of my newest book, 'W' is for wasted. The latest from Sue Grafton. It seemed like it was going to be a pretty good read until I spotted the latest 'Jack Reacher' novel by Lee Child and bought it. Had to read the first chapter of it of course... and now I'm nearly half way through it and probably won't put it down tonight until I'm finished. Oh well.
    Went and had lunch with a good friend of mine, Joe Fleenor, this afternoon. He picked Mexican food of course, but who am I to complain. Always good to see him again, and it was nice knowing I would have a last chance to see him before taking off for another year. That is of course if I can't talk him into going to the contra dance this Friday night.
    After a rather long lunch it was time to head out and run a few errands. Have been trying to find a replacement skylight for one of the two on the trailer that got damaged by hail earlier this summer. So far no luck on that. There are plenty of skylight replacements out there, but each one has it's own type of hinge on it, so unless you want to replace the whole unit, and not just the lid, you need to find the one that matches. Unfortunately, this particular one is a very old style. They still make it, but it may be something I'll have to order on line. No big hurry on that though.... there is always duct tape for that temporary fix.
    Also ran around town and picked up some 3-ring binders and page separators. I read a lot of magazines over the year(s) and hate keeping the whole magazine because of some article in it that I would like to keep. This is particularly true of my model railroad and wooden boat magazines. So I usually just cut those articles out and throw the rest away. Now I'll actually have some place to put them all instead of just throwing them into a manila folder.
    Not much else going on this evening. My friends, Tom and Donna are packing up to go down to Santa Fe for a few days. I'll be staying here house and pet sitting for them. Will need to take a trip or two up to the trailer and get a few more things ready for leaving a week from today, but it should be pretty quiet here otherwise. While I love being here with my friends and family I am strangely drawn back to the road. It's time to be out exploring again.

Green River Canoe Trip - Aug/Sept 2014 - Part 2

The second morning on the river and the scenery is just getting better.

Stress is obviously not something we worry about. I would complain about Rima's lazy attitude toward paddling if I wasn't doing the same thing most of the time.

We are starting to work our way down into the canyon formations along the river so the rock cliffs are coming right down to the rivers edge more often.

It's so much fun to just float along next to these walls of rock.

Off on one of our many short hikes and stops along the way. We stopped here to check out a couple Native American pictographs.

Ah! Native American graffiti.

If you look closely you can see the design from the last photo way out on the ledge to the left of Rima.

Taking a break.... Sandy and Caroline.

A photo that shows that we do actually paddle once in awhile.

Sandy and Fino. Sandy has a double 'bent shaft' paddle that she said helps with her carpel tunnel wrist problem. It feels kind of weird to paddle with at first, but I can see some merit in the design.

Rima and my first night to cook dinner. We alternated meals so that the 4 'couples' would rotate in order with Tom and Donna going first. We only do dinner as a common meal anymore. Breakfast and lunches are done by each individual or couple according to what you want to do. For dinners you need to supply some type of pre-dinner snack and a cocktail of some kind, then the main meal, in this case it was three cheese tortellini with sauce, fresh salad and garlic bread, and then there is dessert. In that night it was either pudding or cookies along with a nice cool Cabernet to wash it all down with. As a couple, you also have to do all the clean up and dish washing for everyone, but that just means that for 3 out of 4 nights you get to sit around and watch the river go by as someone else makes dinner for you. 

Once again.... can the scenery get any better than this?

Starting to feel right at home in a tent.

We often 'raft up' after every hour or so of paddling and just drift with the current for awhile. Plenty of time to grab a snack and something to drink as well as talk and tell jokes. We really don't work that hard most of the time.

Looking down river from a place we got out of the boats at. The walls in this area have become a historical location where people doing the river can get out and write their own rock graffiti on the stone walls.

Some of the writing left over the years. I don't really like the whole concept of this, but it may just help to keep people from doing more of it in other parts of the canyon.

Sandy and Fino.

John and Caroline.

Rima.

Several of the boats have small sail rigs you can set up if the wind is blowing in the right direction.... Usually it isn't. On that day however there was enough wind to at least set it up so Rima could see how it worked. Like most people, once she realized it meant not having to paddle she became very aware of every puff of a breeze.

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