Sun, Marshes, and River Vixens

Once again the night temperatures dropped down far below what was comfortable. In the morning, Toby had woke up and gone outside the tent to start the fire and laughed as he exited. “ Bito, look out side!” he said excitedly.  With a muffled voice I asked “what, more rain or clouds? Or both?”, “No, blue sky!”, Crawling out of my warm cocoon, I groggily told Toby I would punch him in face if I stuck my head out the tent and didn’t see blue sky. Luckily for him, there was blue sky.  It was quite strange feeling the sun warm skin since the only warmth we have received in the past few days had been from our fires.   With the blue painting the sky above me and the sun finally makings it’s return the instant coffee in my cup couldn’t have tasted better.

                The river was wide and shallow, it flowed quite slowly which meant more effort paddling, but we didn’t care; we were warm, no clouds were in the sky, and the sun was out.  The sun warmed us enough that we soon were losing layers: First our jackets, then our first layer of shirts, then all our shirts. I’ve always wanted to get evenly brown on the top half, I guess now is better than never.  The first part of the day we paddled through forest, more bald eagles flew overhead and a few pelicans as well. However the forest turned into more marsh.  Each marsh seemed a little different than the ones in previous days. This marsh had tall narrow grass which bent easily in the breeze.  Each paddle stroke revealed water that was the same color as dark cold coffee, not anything we would want to drink or swim in.  Strangely, there were not so many birds. In previous marshes whole flocks of pelicans, geese, and ducks could be seen. Here, not even a single quack or honk could be heard.  What was able to be heard was the constant staccato of croaking frogs.  Some clouds blocked the sun and we put on our shirts to keep the chill away. This was a smart move because of what happened next.

                We had passed a few boats fishing and had said our hi’s and hellos. Before long a boat was slowly trolling past us. Their engine was loud so it was hard to hear what they were yelling at us. I looked up and noticed that unlike the rest of those on the river, these were women. Three of them, decked out in fishing gear and headed back to town.  As they passed us, Toby decided to act like we wanted to race, quickly making a fast paddling motion.   These fisher-women must have taken this as flirting because one yelled out “You cuties are adorable!” They yelled more, but we couldn’t make it out.  These were no sea sirens from Greek mythology, but rather as Toby aptly coined, middle aged and desperate “River Vixens”.  We cautiously and quickly passed the dock where the river vixen’s boat was parked and continued down the river, glad that we had put our shirts back on before the river vixens caught us.

                We finally pulled out of the marshes and found School Craft Road State Park. A dock greeted us on the edge of the river and quite conveniently had camp sites nearby. We are enjoying the weather immensely. Our bodies are broken in and we feel comfortable paddling hour after hour.  We found a hand driven water pump and have decided it would be good to wash up a bit before we go into town tomorrow. We are excited to be in civilization tomorrow, maybe catch a bite to eat that we don’t have to cook. Until then, wish us luck!