A Moonlight Adventure

Even though the high temperatures during the day are still in the 80's and there's bright sunshine most days, the days are getting shorter and the nighttime temperatures are dipping into the 50's and below.

I read a tweet this morning from a farmer who was preparing to remove the irrigation pipes from his fields as the corn and soybeans have enough moisture to make a crop and it's time for the drying process to begin. The calendar may still say summer, but all signs are pointing to autumn.

We can sense our summer of abundant river water and frequent river trips coming to a close so to celebrate we gathered our companions for what may be a final hurrah, a moonlight tanking trip on the North Platte River between Paxton and Sarben. Although safety wasn't necessarily our number one concern, we still didn't want to make headlines in the next days' paper, so the first group made a trip down in the afternoon placing glow sticks on the deadfalls and hazards, thinking to give us fair warning of danger, although we pretty much have the river memorized, even in the dark.

After that, there were burgers an brats on our patio waiting for full dark and the moon to rise. Another Twitter friend had posted earlier in the day that the National Geographic reported that this was going to be the smallest and dimmest full moon of the year, which gave us pause, but we really had no need to worry. The moon and the river were beautiful.Unfortunately, my photography skills are not such that they lend themselves to nighttime pictures, so you'll just have to take my word for it.

We got on the water at about 10:30. We were pleasantly surprised to find that the mosquitos didn't plague us too badly. The cicadas, crickets and even the bull frogs were in full voice, although with nine people in the tank, this wasn't a night for communing with nature. My throat is still sore this morning from laughing so hard on the trip.

We made it to the Sarben bridge right at midnight, and forethought by The Mister insured that all of our vehicles were there so we didn't have to do any ferrying when what we really wanted to do was just call it a night.

Great scenery, great atmosphere, great friends. If we have to call an end to summer fun, this was a pretty good way to do it.

Thanks for stopping by. The coffee is always on.