"The meaning is always whatever you make of it, but me, I see that eagle saying 'There is no where to be. There is nothing to prove.' "
Unassimilated Stories: "Robin Hood and Little John Paddle Down the French Broad"
Dear Reader,
It is Tuesday again. Publication day. I must admit, this day finds me unprepared. All play and no work makes Jack a boy who is having too much fun to stop and tell his stories.
I have continued to work on my Orion short story which I am both happy and intimidated to say, has grown in size and scope from my original intention. I will not be releasing the first serial of it today because as I have continued to develop the story it is, of its own accord, growing in a backwards fashion. The beginning continues to move to the left of the page rather than the end moving to the right of the page as one might expect.
I hope to nail down a solid beginning in the next few weeks. Good news, once I do, I’ll have lots of middle to work with. And well, I already know the end of the story since it is enshrined in myth. But perhaps I can make a quirk or a twist that you’ll appreciate.
As for today’s story, I hope you’ll be content. I didn’t fully phone this in, but also don’t invest as much time with the editor’s scalpel as I often do. Today’s story will function somewhat as a field-report, a story-of-the-day.
But hey don’t get too down on me, there’s pictures!
Enjoy,
Charles
Robin Hood and Little John Paddle Down the French Broad
The mornings have been getting cold, and I’m quickly learning why only the bold or the foolish choose to live in an RV full-time. Before long I’m going to move out of the bedroom and into the main room. Gonna do the one-room-cabin thing for the winter. Easier to heat. Easier to plug all the drafts. Might even coax Duke into cuddling up and helping me stay warm. (Not holding out hope though, this is the one time of the year that he doesn’t overheat just as a byproduct of being.)
With the cold in mind, when Michael suggested we go for a paddle, I pushed for the 10am start. He wasn’t amused, but I got my way. This time.
When its cold in the morning, the bed can be just a bit too inviting, even for the intrepid among us. But I know better, and while I didn’t regret our late start, I did find myself wishing for a glimpse of the misty morning magic that I know to be averse to the morning sun. So next time we’ll get up early.
But we actually benefited from our late start in one key way.
The plan was to use Michael’s '“new” canoe. He’d gotten it cheap from a person he knew and its patches had not yet been tested. Well, let’s just say the boat held water, but on the less desired side of the wall. So it was nice to be able to swap the boats with it already light and warm out. We were able to snag another boat from the park (Michael has backstage access)
By the time of our second attempt to get on the water, the day had warmed up and I had shed almost all of my layers. The sky was blue, a noticeably dark blue. You hear phrases like “Blue bird skies” or “robin’s egg blue” sometimes associated with clear, crisp days, but this was darker than that. I wonder if there are atmospheric inferences to be made by the color of the sky. The stories say that old-timers and indigenous folks could read the skies the way our weather forecasters read their instruments. I took enough atmospheric science to know that the clouds follow predictable patterns and that certain types can be associated with certain weather. But I don’t know anything about the meaning behind particular hues of blue. I’ll report back if I can find anything meaningful on that front.
The plan for the day was simple. Put in at the boat ramp upstream of Seven Islands and take out at Cruz Landing. Explore the side channels along the way. Don’t rush anything.
You know about omens? Well, while we were still in easy sight of the launch ramp, a bald eagle graced us. Flew in over the river by way of the bluffs to the north and then lazily rode the thermals above a red aluminum roof on the south bank. The meaning is always whatever you make of it, but me, I see that eagle saying “There is no where to be. There is nothing to prove.”
Michael spent the first bit orienting himself to the backside of the working portions of the park. Apparently many of their staff/maintenance facilities are just north of the river bluffs. It makes for a tricky, but enjoyable orientation challenge. And I learned that if I want to get more discrete access to the park, I can begin my day at the boat ramp and take the “seclusion bend” trail to the interior.
I have this protocol. I think I wrote about it in greater detail in the story Coyote’s Game. I like to get moving and really get myself physically, psychologically clear of the parking lot upon arrival. Get the blood flowing. Get the mind shifted into a new frame. But the primary parking area has a paved trail to the interior. Its actually a very lovely trail and I’m glad the park has it, but it doesn’t quite allow me to get into the zone. So I’ll relish the opportunity to enter from the secluded side next time I go. Chalk one up for the time-honored tradition of scouting the landscape by boat. We’re a couple of slightly less rugged John Wesley Powells.
Michael led the way to a cave tucked into the big bluff on the south bank. Apparently it is spring fed. You can hear the water trickling back up and away. Some little cascade keeping itself company with music in the darkness.
We pulled the boat in and got out on foot. The water was shin deep and the muddy floor sucked at our feet. The roof was low but the protrusions were few and far between so we hunched our heads and easily made our way forward with just the light of a single cell phone to guide us.
I’m bad with judging distance. But I find time to be a much more compelling measure anyway. After all, what does the difference to a mile or a kilometer matter when the real question is how long will it take me to travel? Whats the terrain like? How many river crossings? You get the idea.
Well, something more than 5 minutes but fewer than 10, we reached a point beyond which neither of us was willing to shimmy. Though I’d like to go back and give it another shot.
The tunnel narrows down to a small gap, plenty big enough to squirm through, but guaranteed to reward you with a soaking wet drawers-full of mud. And, well, I was wearing one of my favorite shirts. . . It looked like the tunnel opened back up after the submerged stone window. Not as open as on our side, but open enough to continue exploration. It’d be neat to at least find the little cascade, interview the musicians playing their private concert.
Downstream from the cave we came upon the park’s namesake islands. Sometime in the past three years the park built a very sturdy pedestrian bridge. It’s one of the highlights of the park. A beautiful blend of artifice and nature. Don’t misunderstand, it’s nothing too fancy, but then, maybe that’s why I like it. Its bright white, which always looks good in the foreground of green trees and blue river. But its also well-sited. It reminds, in a low-key way of the famous roads and bridges built out west (thinking Columbia River Gorge and Zion National Park) or in Europe (only ever seen pictures) where they build the infrastructure to deliberately compliment the landscape, to emphasize the vistas, to blend in where able, to stand out where appropriate. Haute couture landscape architecture.
Seven Islands has a little taste of that.
Plus its home to my very favorite birds. They weren’t there this week, I expect they’ve already migrated. But any time you have a good, cliff-like human structure near insect habitat, you’re bound to invite swallows. They build their nests out of mud and spittle and adhere them to the underside of the bridge where the piling meets the decking. It looks like clusters of gourd plants, or like a less rational form of the Mesa Verde cliff dwellings.
We cruised under the bridge and Michael humored me when I insisted that we take river-right even though its not the “proper way”. I’m a big fan of the adventurous way. I can’t help but be skeptical of the proper way.
So we skated through the shallows and stirred up the grass carp. Literal river dragons if I ever saw one. They see you coming and they thrash out of your path, but they disturb so much water in the doing, you’d think an Odyssean monster was about to rise up and consume your crew. (Sorry Michael, I’ll miss you.)
We even got to ace a few rapids. Downstream of the bridge and the carplands, you have to pick a channel. We chose one I’d hiked down before. I had never been to the end of it, and this seemed like a good time to finish out that section of uncharted map-zones. According to Michael’s morning report, there was only one turbine generating this day, so the water wasn’t too high, nor was it too fast for our large, comfy, distinctly non-whitewater canoe. We scraped the bottom a time or two, which I, the pilot, can only call an inevitability and not a consequence of operator error, but we nailed the lines on the rapids themselves. Chattooga Wild and Scenic River, I’m coming for you next. (Maybe with a more purpose-built boat)
The day drifted on. Not too slow. Not too fast. Made us both wish we got out on the river more often. But neither of us let regrets cloud this iconically October day. Though I couldn’t help myself from embarking on a short rant about how people could possibly spend their October weekends indoors watching football. Literally the best weather of the year and you want to spend it on your air conditioned couch. Count me out. I’ll see you indoors in December when you dust off your fireplace.
All told, our adventure took 5 or so hours. Maybe 3.5 of which were actually on the water. It sounds like next time we’ll be on the hunt for a put-in further upstream.
But I’ll be back to the islands before the year is done. More creeks to explore. More critters with which to commune.