Back again after a long stretch on the road. I started my own company in January after a year of running pilot programs and building a business plan, I decided to make a run for it and follow a dream. The trips went really well, and we covered a lot of ground through Virginia, West Virginia, Tennessee, and North Carolina. We caved, backpacked, mountain biked, kayaked, surfed, and laughed until we fell asleep at night under dark star lit skies among the mountains, fields, and streams closest to home. Many folks seem to have an ideal of the exotic, a vision of paradise. There are droves of people wanting to convince us that a beautiful place with crystal clear water, white sand, and a swaying green palm trees is all we need, and even the only possible way we can truly relax, unwind, and let our spirits wander and dream like they are meant too. Thankfully this could not be farther from the truth and if you adopt a sense of adventure and a bit of a willingness to get lost, one can easily see that this ideal of relaxing affairs and freedom we all desire and need is but an attitudinal adjustment and openness of spirit. In any case, before I digress even further from my intent here, let me begin where I last left off at the end of May.
I finished up the paddling season with Curt and the boys. The school year quickly came to a halt and I was out the door as mentioned on the road conducting trips. Alas, the trips came to an end, and Kerry and I left to spend six weeks on the St. Lawrence River in upstate New York on the border of Canada. Kerry's family's summer home is an extraordinary place set on a 300 acre peninsula in the middle of the river on an island called Grindstone. The river is no ordinary vision of a river and exists in great breadth as it pours from Lake Ontario, several miles wide in many places. The region is called 'The Thousand Islands', and you guessed it, there are in fact over a thousand islands of all shapes and sizes littering the landscape.
There are three structures on the property: Rockledge, the Acorn, and the Farm Cottage. The two of us are staying in the Farm Cottage for the remainder of the summer. The Farm Cottage is an old white farmhouse circa the turn of the last century. The interior walls are a dark grainy pine replete with wooden floors. There is an immense fifty year old lilac bush that borders that left front corner of the house. A large red barn sits about one hundred yards behind the cottage. The house sits about one hundred feet from the riverbank which is littered with old Shag Bark Hickory trees. There is a silver metal floating dock that juts into the river good enough for the temporary docking of a boat if one is in a hurry to get in and out. The floors creak, the water pressure is weak, and the upstairs sleep hot when the summer nights are still, but the river is cold, the skies blue and speckled with a painter's version of puffy white clouds, and the air crisp and warm in the splendid summer sun. It is a glorious place to slow down and get back to basics.
We left on Tuesday afternoon. We spent an exorbitant amount of time packing, strapping, and installing a new roof rack system to haul up our mountain bikes and kayaks. I am hoping to adventure around in Canada for a bit to see some new rivers. We finally had everything ready and hit the road. The drive was not too bad. We stopped a few times to feed 'Olive' our pet pig who gets a bit rambunctious and squeals incessantly when she is ready for milk. It was almost dark when we arrived at the French Creek Marina. We quickly unloaded most of our things on to the new eighteen foot Boston Whaler. The wind picked up as we pushed off the dock. We trolled out of the marina and under the bridge and there were white caps by the time we reached open water. Just as suddenly as it had come on, the wind ceased as we rolled into the dock at Rockledge. A welcome 'hello' from the River.
We retired to bed around midnight and eagerly awaited morning.
No comments:
Post a Comment