Friends on the River

Even though we didn't have time for it, and it took a lot of effort that could have been spent more productively elsewhere, we absolutely had to take some time to enjoy our first tanking trip of the season.

The guys did all of the heavy lifting, and had everything ready to go by the time I got home from work. Given all of the discussion that has to take place before a monumental event such as this, it was still nearly 7pm before we actually got on the water. The river was absolutely magnificent. Just as peaceful, serene, quiet and beautiful as we needed it to be to refresh our spirits after so many days of frenzied activity.

Despite the flooding rains of the past few days downstream, here there was barely, and in some cases not quite, enough water to float our tank. Cotton from the cottonwood trees floated upon the water in abundance. We saw lots of wildlife along the river, deer and turkey crossed at several points, heard countless song birds, saw lots of carp speeding through the water, and even met a new friend. He wasn't very hospitable, in fact was quite grumpy, but judging from his size, he is probably quite elderly, and we were disturbing his solitude, so his mood was understandable. Even given the fact that he is a turtle, he managed to move quite quickly once he had been restored to the safety of his watery world, and soon disappeared among the reeds.Our policy on our river treks is to always pick up any man-made debris that we find along the way, and it was on a foray to retrieve a plastic soda bottle that we chanced to encounter this fella. I'm just glad I saw him before he saw me. It was a leisurely couple of hours floating down the North Platte. It would be more exciting if we had enough courage to make a try at the South Platte, which is running just below flood stage, but we aren't that brave... or is it that we are too smart to try it? We may never know just which it is.

Thanks for stopping by. The coffee is always on.