The Magic Bus

One year and eight months have passed since my last post. That last post was left sitting like a sentry on the front lines of the edge. There was always a need to take one last stroke.

Homegrown Locals was born out of a passion for whitewater and a desire to share my stories in hopes of creating a little inspiration and passing along a little soul. The blog was originally titled 'Kayak Harder'. This name never quite stuck. It evolved from the half marathon me and my buddy Jim used to run before putting on the Upper Yough. This was all it was for a brief time. A place to tell stories about kayaking. When I started teaching, the space began to merge with a passion for environmentalism, and of course the rest of my life. So began what I have come to consider the first real phase of a long journey. This phase included its share of dragon slaying, sleepless nights, broken hearts, wild white water, foreign lands, and finally a very magic bus. All things eventually come to an end. Endings are painful, but eventually we are born again in a new light.

Since my last post from a hammock in a tree in Nicaragua, I started a family and moved north. I left the banks of the Potomac, the Mather Gorge, beltway traffic, and our small white house on Halsey St. behind. There are many tales left untold, and of course there is no way I am going to attempt to recreate what has already passed. The river only flows one way.

So, here we are, almost two years later, and I am returning briefly to put a final stamp on this collection of tales that are largely representative of my own personal myth, my own call to adventure.

There were moments of lunacy and plenty of dirtbagging, but most importantly moments of authentic adventure, inspiration, and hearty souls.

Cheers to all of it, and one last ride on the magic bus.

The journey is long, and it is only the beginning.

'The Magic Bus'

We live in unromantic times.

Everything we do seems to be about efficiency. We are on an unending quest to make everything we do faster. We have no time to wait. There can be no dull moments. We are entitled to be entertained. We take spaces formally part of the public, formally part of the sacred and make them profane by allowing incessant intrusions of idiocy through, but certainly not limited to, cell phones, ear buds, and advertisements. They are symbols of a deranged sense of progress, an indication of a culture on the verge of collapse, and a dying of more soulful and humane forms of communication.

Communication is defined as something imparted or transmitted, an interchange of thoughts or opinions.  If we examine the definition it may lead us to the assumption that there are qualitative concerns in regards to the nature of communication. What makes communication good? What makes communication bad?  We might infer that the new styles in which we are imparting or transmitting may in fact actually change the definition of the communication because the effect is in fact pejorative.

Worry not children of the post 911 world, I am not about to begin a sermon on the wickedness of technological innovation and how it is causing our cultural worlds to unravel in bizarre and unsightly ways. No. I simply want to share a story. It is a story I tell myself so I can believe the things I want to about the world. It is a very human thing to do. We tell ourselves all kinds of stories to make congruencies out of the messy truths of reality. If reality may be nothing more than a notion of infinite possibility, it seems that in this day and age we sure do a great job of suppressing ourselves into an unseemly world of tight, constricting, and enslaving boxes. Square boxes of ideological dogma that so many of us are willing to carry unabashedly to the ends of our very flat planet.

So begins the story of the magic bus.

It was green. The paint was peeling in a variety of places. The taillights were cracked. There was a time when the roof was white, but the black mold, and light green lichen found a suitable niche under the towering oaks where the bus was parked on the banks of the river. There was a window missing in the very back left seat. The stereo was circa early nineties. It did not work. It currently served as a home for a small twig. I do not know why the twig was stuck in the cassette deck.

The floor was filthy. There existed years of grime from summers of rapturous campers having their way with nature. The logo on the side of the bus was peeling. The white letters dangled in the sunlit breeze. Most importantly, and above all else there was a large sombrero sitting on the cracked dashboard that said, Chevy’s Tex Mex. The emblem was sewed into the sombrero with red and green yarn. It was an oddity. I fell in love with it. I placed it on my head.

I grabbed the keys. The cold metal jangled in my hands. I stuck the key in the ignition and turned. The bus sputtered. It spit. It coughed. It belched. It breathed fire and smoke from its nostrils. It went back to sleep.

I turned the key again. The engine roared. It wrenched. It caught fire. It smoked. It popped, and then, it came to life. I woke the bus from its slumber. It greeted me, tired and bleary eyed, an addict on the verge of collapse and ready for one last rush. She squinted her eyes and looked me up and down as I walked around her boxy curves. It had been a while since she put on a nice dress on. These days it was all Bargain Barn shopping. Whatever it took to keep her going.

Curt and I stood proudly and just listened. Our minds raced with the possibilities. Where would go? What could we do? We could do anything. We could go anywhere. We dreamed of sleeping on the floor of the bus. We talked wildly about putting a couch in the back. We salivated over the thought of a cooler full of beer overflowing with Pabst, ready at a moments notice when the mood struck and the winds were right. We would fix the stereo. I knew just how to do it. We would get a trailer. I would weld the frame. We would fill it with kayaks. Old kayaks. Classic kayaks. Kayaks that no one wanted to paddle anymore, but we knew were still way cool. We would get some Dancers, Corsicas, and Mirages, maybe some Pirouettes, and a few swanky New Waves. We would chase the sun forever and float on a dream for infinity.

We got right to it. We hopped inside and did not waste a second. I sat in the seat. It was torn beneath my right buttock. The foam showed. It was exciting. I backed her up. She emerged from beneath the oak, into the sun, and beside the river. Oh yes, there was definitely life left in this old dragon.

We rumbled on down the road. My wallet was a grand lighter. I was utterly convinced that I had scored the deal of a lifetime, a ticket to the unexpected, with space for sixteen wild dreamers. The raindrops hit the windshield. The moment was exploding in pinks, purples, greens, reds, and oranges. It was an amalgamation of Christmas, Halloween, and a fourth of July make-out session on the sand dunes in Kill Devil Hills overlooking the Atlantic. It was ephemeral. The bus was communicating with us. It was imparting a message.

We could feel the blood of the Gods in our veins. The bus was transcendent. It was magic. We knew it. We could feel it. We had no idea what was going to happen.

That first night, we parked her out in front of my little white house in the suburbs out by Rock Creek in Kensington. She sat slanted on the hill. We crawled underneath her belly and began unbolting some old rusted seat bolts. We labored intensively. We sweated through four beers by the time the evening was through, but we accomplished the task. The seats were out.

The next day we had our first session on the river. It was day one with the boys. Eight young lads signed up to learn the lessons of the river, like it or not. It was thirty-five degrees outside. My balls were cold. They stuck to the seat.

We had no trailer yet. The boys drove to the river to meet us. Curt and I put all of the boats into the bus, on top of the seats. When we opened the back door it all spilled wildly into the gravel parking lot. If you were an innocent bystander you would have marveled at the sketchy and ridiculous scene. You also could not deny it. You could also not help but smile.

We lined up the boats. The boys gathered round. They dressed in an eclectic variety of old wetsuits that we put together on the cheap. It was their only protection against the cold water. We explained the parts of the kayak. We talked about the paddle, the pfd, the spray skirt. We let them get in and out of the boats.

We drug the boats to the edge of the canal. It started to sleet. The boys sat in the kayaks, and we instructed them to slide down into the flat water. Curt and I hopped in our boats, slid in first, and waited patiently for them. They managed with some trepidation, to accomplish the task. We sat in a circle. The wind blew hard. The ice froze to our skirts. The ten of us drifted in a slow circle. The point of the exercise was to get to know the boat. To feel the water beneath you, and begin to adjust to the initial awkwardness of becoming centaur like beings designed to roam rapids.

Blitzer flipped. Out of nowhere. He was upside down. Curt gave him a quick hand of god and pulled him back to the breathing world. The look on his face indicated he was stricken with fear. It was a perfect first teachable moment. The river always gives you what you do not expect. Stop paddling for the perfect line. Just become the line. Straight up ninja shit.

Lesson one concluded. The boys were stoked. We were stoked. We shoved the dirty boats into the back of the bus. The situation was immediately recognized as untenable. The trailer was essential. I called my father that night and asked if he knew of any for sale. He said he would take care of it. That night Curt and I worked on the bus a little more. We took an old dirty couch from my classroom and threw it in the back. It fit perfectly. Our dreams were coming true. We had a cozy nook.

We took the frame of the old steel trailer my father found and built a wooden frame around it. It was quite a site to behold. The old green dragon rumbling down the road, towing a giant stack of multi-colored boats packed so tightly the wooden boards were bulging outwards. We kept at it with the boys. Day after day bringing them to the river and sharing with them the power of the fluid world we inhabited. We spared nothing. We told wild tales of our undomesticated and uncivilized adventures in far-flung corners of West Virginia. We shared narratives of feral living in Colorado, and wove yarns of savage heroism and daring wagers when the stakes were high. We pushed their limits and they excited ours.

On a day that lives in my memory as ‘Huge Tuesday’ Curt and I decided to take the boys down the Mather Gorge for the first time. Traveling the Gorge for the first time is a mystical experience. On this particular day, it may have been the ethereal gateway on the River Styx. The plan was simple. Put in at Sandy Beach and take the left and most easily navigated channel out to the main stem of the river. The gauge showed the river at a good level. When we got to the river, conditions were different. Two to three feet higher than expected, but in the moment we were not entirely sure. Curt and I remembered the rapid as a simple wave train, which it is, mostly. We made a plan. We lined the boys up. Curt led the front. I pulled up the back of the pack. The instructions were simple. Round the bend and paddle right. The air was electric. It was day six. We were ambitious.

To taste the real wilderness on your tongue for the first time is an experience you will never forget. This is not the wilderness found in a national park, or your backyard, or even wandering through a true ‘wilderness’ area. No, I am talking about the wilderness of spirit, the wilderness of your soul. I am talking about the first time you wake up in the morning and understand what it truly means to look at your self in the mirror. The first time you discover what is inside your sinewy frame, bulging eyeballs, and matted hair. The first time you face even a tiny sense of the shock that is your own mortality. The fact that your existence is inherently wired to expire, and everything you are is nothing more than an illusion of time and borrowed electrons. Shedding some light on these matters is proper teaching.

The sun shone like a bronze statuette. The cliffs towered in the distance. The wind whistled through the leafless trees. We slipped into the water one by one. After a few brief moments we were all floating downstream together. This did not last long. The guy in the front flipped. The guy in the back flipped. This happened at exactly the same time. All hell broke less on the river. Terror reigned. The boys forget everything we said. The instruction ‘paddle right’ was now interpreted as a thought ‘oh shit, we are going to die’. Curt tried the hand of God. His attempts were unsuccessful. The enormous beast of a hole claimed its first victim. It was a melee. It was chaos. There was a moment where time slowed to the point that it was nearly frozen. The image of three kayaks in a giant hole, spray spewing toward the blue sky, boats violently strewn about as if in the jaws of the kraken, is permanently seared in my memory. At one point, I was not entirely certain that someone was going to perish. It was alarming.

The River Gods were kind that day. Curt and I managed to gather everyone’s gear, except for one lost paddle. We were split on opposite sides of the river. Blitzer was on my side. Being forced to look inside, perhaps for the first time, the tears began to flow down the sides of his cheeks. I stared him in the eye and told him to get back in his boat. ‘There’s one way down son’. He replied that he did not want to go, and we were well on our way to the second big teachable moment of the season. As the river roared loudly, and the rock was hard beneath our feet, and the grains of sand clung to our legs, I looked him in the eye and said, ‘it does not matter if you want to go. It eventually comes for all of us, so you may as well get on with it’.

In all honesty, I am not sure if this is exactly what I said to him, what I imagined saying to him, or if I said something that resembled this. I do know that either way, that however I said, that this is the hard truth of it all:
You go, live, and die, or
You die and stay behind.

In that first season on the river with the boys, there was life before ‘Huge Tuesday’ and life after it. None of us were ever the same. It was that huge.

Curt left my side at the end of the spring and made his way back west to work the White Salmon. He met a girl. They drank a snake bowl together. They got in a fist- fight in the streets of Fort Collins with a marauding pack of locals. Three years later he married her.

The first spring season eventually gave way to summer. We wrapped up our inaugural paddling season with a trip to the Maury River. A few of the boys stepped it up and tried their hand paddling their first class IV rapid. It was a beautiful day on the emerald green waters in a place that lives deep in my bones.

We made a trip to North Carolina. The bus was tired, but she always gave everything she had. She broke down. She would not start in the mornings. The battery died. The vacuum pump blew. The brakes stopped working. The windshield cracked. On we drove.  We drove one thousand five hundred miles through the entire state of North Carolina, down the Appalachians, out to the coast, and up through the Outer Banks. We disappeared into the underworld, into the magic of the Aqua Cave, slept on sheepskins from the Switzerland of Virginia, made sausage burritos from Jenny’s farm, and rode the waves of the Graveyard of the Atlantic. We pulled a fake gun on some locals that shot bottle rockets at us at the top of a mountain in Tennessee. We kayaked the Nolichucky. We hitch hiked our shuttles. We drove five hours through the night to get to the oldest trees on the east coast, hidden in the Black River, the Methuselah of Old Bald Cypress. We crossed our fingers as we drove the bus onto a ferry to cross the ocean to get the Outer Banks. We crossed them again, silently praying that she would start. That she would take us home. We wobbled up the state. We made our way to Virginia, and at a gas station in New Kent County, she just needed some solid rest. We got a tow from a guy name Al. he pulled the bus onto a flat bed and the eight of us crammed into a six -person cab. Three hours later we were home.

My buddy Scott got married that Fall. Everyone flew in for the wedding. I drove us all to the Potomac for his bachelor party in the bus. We sat on the banks of the river and drank moonshine and listened to bluegrass. We admired the knife I forged from an old truck leaf spring on top of the tallest mountain in West Virginia in an October snowstorm.

The next day we threw on our suits. Everyone climbed into the bus and we headed out. She stalled at a traffic light and we could not get her going. We hopped out in our suits and pushed her to the nearest gas station. The dragon was just so tired. She did not have much left to give. It was the dream though, the vision. We could go anywhere. We could do anything. The magic bus would take us there.

My wife and I ran into the streets and hailed a cab. We got lucky and we made it to the ceremony with a minute to spare. I stood next to Scott, held the rings, and watched one of my best friends get married.

I poured more and more money into her. I did not want her to die. I spent thousands here, and thousands there. I was in deep. She had a hold of me.  I could not shake her. So long as she was alive, the possibilities were endless. They were limitless.

Time started to take her. The inevitable toll of change, and the marching drum of the illusion of progress. My seasons on the Potomac were coming to a close.  There were other adventures. There were other horizon lines. I wanted to see them. I wanted to visit them, and see what else was possible.

I traded it all in. My job. The bus. Teaching on the river. I did not want to let it go, but there was a bigger thing that I could not put my finger on. I was certain it was hiding out there somewhere.

I drove the bus down route 66 to the confluence of route 29. I met my mother and father. They would keep the bus in Virginia for me. ‘Don’t worry’ my father said. ‘Ill look after her for you’.

I knew he would. My father is great with all things mechanical. I was bereft. We went so far together. What about the dream? What about the vision? What about going anywhere? What about doing anything? I could still do it. I could still go anywhere. I could still do anything, right? The question sat in my gut. It was a pang of fear. It was a pang of dying and staying.

I moved north. My daughter was born. She is a beautiful, miraculous fiery little girl. She started walking when she was nine months old. She hangs on the pull up bar while I work out. She runs around our apartment saying ‘baby’ over and over again. She loves to be in the woods. She loves to sit in between my legs while I paddle out into still waters.

I am not sure I care too much for my place of employment. It is intense, but in all the wrong ways. It feels soulless, but I know that is not true. It is boring. It is soft butter. I find spaces that I consider sacred increasingly intruded upon. I find my time disappearing. It is scary. It is actually horrifying. The possibilities. The vision. I am fighting to hold on. I want to go anywhere. I want to do anything. I want my daughter to believe the same. These are the details I want to pay attention to. These are the details that are most important. I want to feel a little magic every day. I want to feel a cosmic consciousness.

Last night the phone rang. It was my father. ‘Well, I sold the bus,’ he said. My heart sank. I told him it was ok. I knew it is what I had to do, that I could not keep it. It was not reliable. It was going to cost too much money. It was not responsible. It was not feasible. The rationality was disgustingly efficient. She was gone and I was sad. I am sad, and this is my way of mourning her. I had to honor her with a story. My story. A story about a belief in what might be possible with a little bit of magic.

We are all floating down the river. Perhaps this brings me to teachable moment number three. The river flows one way. You cannot look back. We are floating forever onward and forever changed by all the waters that grace our bows. We must accept everything as it, impermanent and unending. The bus was magic. I have no doubt about it. There was a spirit inside. There was a special energy. You cannot create nor destroy energy. Energy can only change forms, and when it changes forms, some of that energy dissipates in the environment as a less usable form of heat.

The heat of an engine from an old magic bus, and the haunting echo of all the dreams the ever were and will ever be.

The magic bus and I have parted ways in the physical sense, but her message was clear. She imparted a richness of exalted resplendency. She offered lessons of humility. She offered moments of triumph. She offered rewards of happiness. She allowed a dream to come true.

Most importantly, and above all else she communicated. She communicated beautifully, and I am thankful.

Poco a Poco

I woke up on Wendesday morning around eight o´clock. I took a quick shower and got ready to hit the road. My overpiced taxi driver arrived at eight forty'five and we were out the door in a flash. He was a nice guy. We made small talk in the car as we drove the narrow streets of Granada. We made our way past the old cemetary on the outskirts of town and hit the open road to Rivas. He was twenty eight years old and a father of two. He spoke of the difficulties of life in Nicaragua, his desire to return to school one day, and the need to support his family. I felt compassion for his situation, but also a little distaste because I knew he and his friend saw me as a profit. His friend overcharged me for lunch. I knew it, but I was trying to get the most out of the day. I went along with it. No time for bargaining, and besides, it is always a little difficult to bargain when traveling alone with only a mediocre mastery of the Spanish language.

We made it to Rivas in an hour and continued a few more minutes to San Jorge. He drove to the gates of the ferry. I swarm of people drifted chaotically in the road. Hustlers, drifters, wanderers and other desperate individuals roamed awkwardly, all hoping for an answer to the error of their ways. I shook the taxi driver´s hand and bid him farewell. I was immediately accosted by an old man directing me to the ticket booth. I purchased a ticket and made my way for the gate, but wait, there was of course a tax I had to pay. I begrudgingly handed over the Cordobas. At last, the ferry was in site. I stepped aboard the rusty old vessel and headed to the upper deck. A cool breeze, and the view of Volcan Concepcion and the island of Ometepe loomed in the distance.

There were few people traveling and there was plenty of space to roam the deck and enjoy the view. The lake water had a sugary green hue. I sparked a conversation with my fellow travelers. A young couple, and a brother and sister from Connecticut. The brother was in medical school at New York University and the sister a graphic designer in Connecticut. We swapped our brief travel stories and decided to split a taxi ride to the base of Volcan Maderas on the other side of the island from the port of Moyogalpa where we were landing. He seemed a no nonsense individual, his sister a mellower compliment. I enjoyed their company and conversation.

We hopped off the ferry. I was conned into buying a taxi ride once on the island and paid at the port in San Jorge. I was happy to have some company to lower the cost of my stupid mistake. Traveling alone offers its own lessons, but the pragmitism of companionship wins the day when it comes to navigating the intricacies of foreign cultures. We sifted through the crowd and spotted a sign the said 'Beto'. I did not recognize this as my name, but after a few minutes realized the sign was in fact referring to me. We were off in our 'tourism bus' moments later, the landscape of Ometepe unfolding before our eyes as we peered out the window.

It took an hour to get to the base of Maderas, a greener, sleepier, less lofty version of it´s siter, Concepcion. The brother and sister hopped out at 'hosepedaje del sol'. We made a vague plan to hike Maderas the next day, but as I had no real clue as to where I was headed, this never materialized.

The bus traveled on down the road into the shadows of Maderas. The noise of humanity quieted, and the driver made a right and started traveling up a dusty gravel road. I stepped out at 'Finca Magdalena'. Finca Magdalena is touted in the guidebooks as a great farming cooperative where backpackers gather in droves to enjoy simple rustic lodgings and opportunties to learn about tropical agriculture. I was excited to arrive. In front of me stood a rickety white shack with a large porch. Ceiling fans abounded. I took a seat at a table. No one came. I walked to the desk and asked if I might order some lunch. After a simple meal and moments contemplating my next move I asked the desk where I might find 'Finca Bona Fide'. I accepted some vague directions, opened the gate from the porch and walked down into the garden.

I exited the garden and hung a right. I walked into the woods. It was dry, dusty, and I was already dripping sweat. I stumbled over a few rocks and took a moment to recalibrate to my new surroundings. It was peaceful, and almost immediately I felt life slow down. I walked down the dusty trail. It split in multiple directions several times, and each time I chose left. I do not know why. I spòtted a roof to my left, far in the distance across a farmer´s field. I thought maybe this was it, but I walked further. Suddenly, a large herd of cattle was clambering in my direction. They had horns. I threw my pack over a barb wire fence and slid my body through. I waited patiently for the herd to pass. The farmer went a hundred yards before opening a gate and leading his cattle to water. I decided to ask him for directions to la Finca Bona Fide. He pointed out the trail and I walked down through the farmer´s field to the rooftop I had seen in the distance.

I passed a few more cattle and a a flock of beautiful white birds as I meandered down the gritty trail. I came to a a fence with an opening of offset posts. I walked through and saw the sign for Bona Fide. 'Welcome to la Finca Bona Fide. Please prearrange all visits.'

I walked through the gate into a forest. I immediately noticed an enormous variety of trees, none besides the banana with which I was familiar. I passed a large hut. There were a few young people lounging in hammocks. At first glance, visions of Colonel Kurtz came to mind.

A girl jumped up and asked if I needed help. I pleaded my case, and she took me to the leader. I immediately liked Tom. I told him I had contacted someone from the farm the week before about doing some filming over the course of a couple of days. Tom had a big heart, and was eager to please. He showed me around, and told me Mitch would be around in a bit to speak with me. I sat and waited while Tom wandered off to complete a task.

I noticed a young guy sitting next to a large brick oven shucking beans into a pot. He looked a little weary from too many beans and too much sun. I lit a conversation. Names. Check. A few loose details, and muddy Mitch wandered in from the forest. Ten minutes later I was following Mitch at a feverish pace through the forest to collect honey from the hives of an endangered species of tropical stingless bee. We approached the hive. There were no bee suits. I had never collected honey, and I was a little concerned about being stung. A dark, tough skinned man gently puffed smoke into the hive, while a small Spanish woman danced around in fits of joy at the moment in hand. People gave directions. I grabbed wrenches, bowls of water, and in the process tried to capture it as best I could on film. I learned the woman was a beekeeper from Spain, and the opportunity to collect honey from such an exotic species of bee was to me like kayaking vintage whitewater in the wilds of Chile.

Mitch talked about the forest and the farm while we wandered to check on two more hives. I heard a deep rumble in the distance that sounded like a large wooden door slowly closing. It was slightly ominous. I wandered to have a look at where it was coming from, and to my surprise a few large howler monkeys roosted in the high branches of a tree, thier white juevos dangling proud and blowing in the breeze. We approached the hives. Mitch cautioned me to avoid a thorny tree. The tree hosted a species of ant. When the tree was shaken, the ants would appear as if from nowhere and attack the intruder with thousands of tiny bites. Once they bit they did not let go. I gave the tree a wide berth.

We wandered back up the hillside to the kitchen and communal area. I slowly met the rest of the farm volunteers. Gianna and Berkly were from the University of Vermont, Willie Jay from Buffalo, New York, Marco from Florida, Ben from Durango, Colorado. We all climbed into the treehouse to catch the sunset. We stared out into the distance as the sky worked its way through a thousand shades of red, pink and orange, illuminating Volcan Concepcion in the distance and Lago Colcibolca below. I sat next to Ben during dinner and we continued the conversation we started earlier that afternoon. His parents started Deer Hill, the outdoor company I modeled when creating the site for 'My Own Backyard'. It was an uncanny coincidence. Over the next few days we became good buds.

Everyone wound down quickly after dinner, and it was not long before I climbed into the treehouse to rig my hammock for the night. I drifted off to sleep with the sounds of Oroccos and Howler monkeys echoing in the darkness.

Las Isletas de Granada

I woke up at six o clock. The room was dark. A tiny stream of pale white light barely crept through the blinds illuminating the four twirling fans attached to the ceiling. I was in bed siete. There was little clue as to with whom I was sharing the room, only traces of faint British accents mumbled and echoing in the hall outside the door as I drifted off to sleep the night before. I was eager to get a move on and take in the city in the early dawn hours.

I climbed down from my bunk. I felt dirty from a long day of traveling. My cab ride was pleasant and easy from the airport. I paid a premium for it, but it was near dark when the plane landed and the thought of traveling in the wrong direction to get to the bus station in Managua was more than I was willing to deal with. The cab driver and I made small talk in a mixture of equal parts broken Spanish and English. I caught the following - his intense like of former president Bill Clinton, he has a wife and two children, and he enjoys the sport of baseball. Muy excelente.

I opened a large creaking door that led to a patio. The sun was starting to filter in, and a mellow breeze bounced gently off the walls. I turned the handle of the shower and doused myself in a nice cool stream of water. The cacophony of a small orchestra of birds permeated the air. I wondered what exactly I was doing. Only one way to find out.

I threw on some shorts and a t-shirt and walked out the door of the hostel. I took only my wallet and camera. I left my backpack on the bed with all of my possessions in it. The girl at the desk asked if I was staying another night. I was unsure.

The wandering began. I took photographs everywhere I walked. I found a variety of places to post up and people watch. Two guys moving a refrigerator, dogs, birds, decaying churches, children on their way to school - the typical moving and vibrant mosaic of life I observe in all travels south.

I made my way down to the lake shore. There was a strong onshore breeze accompanied by a steady sets of waves. I hung a right. I was getting farther and farther away from the hostel, and I started to think it might be smart to go back and grab my pack. I ignored the urge and walked onward. I passed into the official tourist district of the city of Granada. Someone forget to tell the other tourists because I was the only one there. I walked passed an enormous display of playground equipment. The first sets were metal. They were colorful with hints of rust and a few holes here and there. I took note of one large metal slide with a hole big enough for a small child right in the middle. I stopped for a ride on an old swing. The chains creaked as I swung in the breeze and stared out at what the locals call the sweet sea.

A walked on. A short man approached and began a conversation. He soon raved of all the lake had to offer and would not stop speaking about las Isletas. He offered to rent me a kayak and show me.

Onward we wandered. Now not alone, but with my new companion who sat sideways on his bicycle and skipped his feet to propel himself down the road as he rambled on in a steady stream of Spanish, only half of which registered. He was a rotund little man, who wore a purple t-shirt and blue jeans which, try as they might, could not seem to stay positioned above the rear view.

We walked down empty streets into a large canopy sitting near the lake. The canopy was fifty feet high, constructed of metal I-beams and covered with palm fronds. He procured a bottle of water and opened a metal gate so I could peer at a menagerie of turtles with a small crocodile nestled in their midst. He disappeared for a moment, only to return by water paddling a large yellow sea kayak. He also had a blue whitewater kayak. He had two life jackets which we did not wear. He used his as a cushion for his back. I stored mine in the cargo area of the stern and rested my camera on top.

Into the lake we paddled. I thought of the phrase I often amused my students with when I was taking them kayaking on the Potomac- when you do not know what to do, go kayaking and see what happens.

It was a glorious morning. He explained the different types of trees and birds, and stopped often to pick a variety of fresh fruits hanging from the trees. We stopped and ate mangoes for breakfast, and he was especially inclined to stop to gather a fruit I had not heard of - picotes, a small fruit with purplish skin and a delicate, sweet white flesh. We also ate tamarinds, and visited a small island inhabited by four monkeys who showed their teeth if you got too close.

On the way back I could feel the sun starting to burn my skin. I knew I should probably paddle quickly so as not to be in pain for the rest of the trip. We paddled back to the canopy and he offered lunch. I ate a guapote, or lake bass, fried whole and washed it down with a cold beer.

Following lunch, I asked if we could visit Volcan Mombacho - an extinct volcano that erupted thousands of years ago forming the Isletas, towering over the city. In a moment he produced a friend with a taxi and we were off to the top of the volcano. We parked the taxi as far up the road as we were allowed, and promptly set out on foot. It was not long before his friend the taxi driver had to quietly bail out of our hiking excursion. To say the trail was steep does not begin to describe the angle of incline we were ascending. One man down we made it to the top. The view of the lake and the city of Granada was well worth it.

They dropped me off at my hostel, and I made arrangements to get a ride to the city of Rivas in the morning.

My bag was waiting safely on bed siete.

The Drive

Kerry and I lived at the River for thirty one straight days this summer. On the morning of the thirty-second day I was off in a flurry with Nathan Sass and Jordan Poffenberger, headed to the wilds of Canada. One chapter ends and another begins.

Our time at the river was special. We arrived with Olive and Mogul in mid-July. The days were and the nights perfectly cool as we built fire after fire and watched the lights of Clayton glisten in the distance. We finally visited Gananoque, enjoyed a rainy day in Kingston, and celebrated our anniversary at the Wellesley Inn in T.I. Park, (afterward I almost made Kerry puke by spinning her around on the merry go round at an impossible speed.) We knee boarded, visited the sunken freighter, had parties in the Skiff House, jumped off Leake Island a million times, and drifted off to sleep at night listening to Christopher Timothy deliver the memoirs of James Herriot. It is undoubtedly a special place, and the two of us love it dearly. It now holds a remarkably special place in my heart, and I am beginning to understand the melancholy regret that goes along with leaving the dock at Rockledge for the last time of the summer. I am not sure what the future holds for the two of us in terms of staying at Rockledge, but I am fairly certain we will find a way to continue to spend time in such a magical place.

All things run their course, and on the morning of the thirty second day I was off on a new adventure. It was necessary that we drove two cars into Canada, even though there was only three of us. The first shuttle in particular presented a pressing feat of driving endurance. We were on our way to the fabled Taureau River, one of the most difficult runs in eastern Canada. The Taureau is fifteen miles long and cuts through some formidable terrain in the boreal forest of Jaques Cartier National Park approximately one hour north of Quebec City.

As we crossed the border, I stared down over the bridge into the clear and smoothly tilting waters of the Rift on the St. Lawrence. Moments of summer lilted like a soft ray of sunshine through my mind. I pushed the pedal and crept forward, slowly letting the breath of August course through my veins.

We stopped to grab some lunch along the way, and before long we were passing through Quebec City looking for the road north into Jaques Cartier Park. After a few wrong turns and an impressive view of the three hundred foot Montmorency Falls we found 175 and headed into the storm clouds looming on the horizon.

Quebec City is a majestic piece of urban ground set aloft on high ground hovering above the St. Lawrence River. As we corrected our course, I stared at the St. Lawrence, a pathway to home. When I am on the road it is usually not long before a baroque loneliness begins to chill my soul. This fact is not unappreciated, but rather it is interesting to me that I often long for this feeling of stony solitude. I consider it a necessary natural process of keeping the balance between my diametrically opposed internal workings of equal tendencies to be both an intro and extrovert.

It began to rain as we made our way into the park. We stopped at the booth and a strikingly cute young girl took our money in exchange for entrance. We headed down the windy road working our way toward the put-in. The sun was set, and the mist hung over the Taureau like a solemn totem, a foreboding warning that made the hair stand on the backs our necks. It was like traveling through the Gates of Mordor.

It took one hour to reach the take-out point. We dropped Jordan's car, loaded he and Nathan's boats on the Jeep and hung a few pieces of kayak gear from trees on the banks of the river so we knew where to take out.

It was nice to have some company, and just as we were about to leave a park ranger showed up and began to yell at us in broken english with a strong shot of a french accent. He thought we were going to try and illegally camp, but we explained we were only setting shuttle to run the river tomorrow. We made our plans clear to him so we could avoid a fine, but more so to make sure someone would come searching for us if things went wrong on the river. We were warned the river was very high by an experienced local guide.

Once things were settled with the park ranger, we were off on our two and a half hour shuttle to the put-in. There were no signs, no lights, and no gas stations on the way there, just mile after mile of tall wire fence lining the highway to keep the moose from crossing inconspicuously. Finally, we reached the entrance.

It was pouring and the fog was thick. We began our way down the dirt track into the Canadian wilderness. There is no way to describe the feeling other than ominous. Ten minutes down the dirt track and I jerked the wheel almost jumping out of my seat. A giant moose bounded out of the wood and into the road. We chased him for several minutes before he reared off into a small cut in the trees. The forest was dark and foreboding, thick with moss, ferns, and infinite bramble. It was impenetrable.

The dirt road ended, and I turned to Nathan to ask confirmation to continue. He remembered it steep and treacherous, so we plodded on. There was no more road, just an overgrown double track trail that seemed occasionally used by hikers and more likely moose. We descended downward for about twenty minutes when finally the trail became so tight it seemed the Jeep might no longer be able to pass through. The rain smashed the gun metal roof in angry droves. I hopped out of the car and stood in the rain. I felt as if the forest were swallowing me whole. I stared at the tiny sodden Jeep and knew it was our only lifeline, our only way back out. I hopped back in the driver's seat.

We backtracked up the trail and the tires immediately began to spin. I stopped the Jeep and put the car into four wheel drive. I pressed the pedal. Traction. Then, the tires began to spin and the Jeep slowed. Slow, slower, until our movement forward was nearly imperceptible. I knew that if we stopped, we were cooked. We would have been stuck in the middle of that thick black boreal forest, drenched in rain with no where to go, and many miles from anything or anyone.

We fishtailed wildly to the point where I thought I might lose control of the Jeep. We bounced dangerously up and down as the tires sloshed about in helpless desperation searching for some piece of solid ground. Inch by inch we moved forward, the engine whining in exhaustion, begging for mercy, but I knew there was none to be had until we were safely at the top. In a surge finally the tires bit solid ground and we climbed voraciously. The three of us breathed a sigh of relief. They congratulated me on my driving prowess. It was our first test as a group, and we had made it.

We made the decision to continue back to the entrance and make camp for the night in the rain. They set up a two man tent and I passed out in the back of the Jeep. My eyes closed and I gently drifted off to the pitter patter of rain drops on the windows.

When I awoke, I momentarily forgot where I was. The rain rolled rhythmically down the glass and the air was thick with a smokey fog.

A sense of ominous foreboding filled the air.

We were going kayaking, and the river was Richter high.

Day 31 - Kingston

It was a rainy day. Kerry and I boated over to Wolfe Island, borrowed Rebecca's car and drove to Marysville to take the ferry over to Kingston. We ate lunch at Panchanco, one of Kerry's favorite restaurants. I picked unwisely and had a less than appetizing tostada with scallop ceviche, probably not the thing to order in a restaurant specializing in the local organic.

We went to the market to pick up a few fruits and veggies, and I stopped in a local book shop to pick up a few maps of Quebec. A few friends from home are driving up, and we are heading off for a few days to kayak in Canada. The timing is not perfect, but I have wanted to do the trip for the whole summer, so I am trading some final days of family time to go.

It was a great day in Kingston. The drive back to Rockledge in the boat was a wee bit stormy. We all had dinner with Aunt Roslyn's sister and her family, and Cullen taught me how to make an alcohol stove out of a beer can.

Nathan and Jordan arrived around nine o'clock. We talked trip logistics before heading off to bed, intending to head off late morning.