St. Louis Smells

“Wind's from the south today.”

When we toured the big Budweiser plant here last December we realized that the slightly sweet odor we occasionally smell in our neighborhood emanates from the brewery, a mixture of fermented grains with strong overtones of hops. The brewery is only a mile from our house. It vents massive amounts of this non-toxic gas every hour. We only smell it when the wind is from the south.

It's a good clean smell. Nobody complains. It's also a reassuring smell in a time of economic uncertainty since it means beer is still being brewed by one of St. Louis' biggest employers.

Most of the time I'm not aware of smelling anything. The scientific explanation for this is fairly simple. First, compared to other mammals, humans have a very puny nose. Second, we have evolved so that sight is our primary contact with the world. We've got eyes exquisitely well suited to interpret everything we encounter, so smelling the world takes a back seat. Third, our olfactory system stops smelling things quite quickly. Even though the chemicals for the odor are still there we forget we can smell them. The result is that human beings are not very discriminating in the olfactory department.

Because we live in a world mostly encountered by sight, we're unreliable reporters of smells. Some people are better than others at recognizing and describing what they smell. Most people typically just categorize smells as pleasant or unpleasant. To describe a specific smell we refer to common experience rather than the smell itself. Something smells like rotting fish or like a rose. Descriptions of complex specific smells are elusive. No one can describe a specific perfume, for example, without sounding hilariously vague: “violets, sugar and a hint of musk” does not conjure up anything for me.

I bring this up because of an incident this week involving our dog, Joli. First thing every morning while it's still dark I let Joli out into our yard. She's gone 2-3 minutes then comes back to eat her breakfast. On Tuesday I realized about 10 minutes had passed and she had not come back. I was concerned enough to go out to see what was up.

I saw her at the foot of the steps crouched in a typical border collie “stare.” This stance always means she has spotted something she believes is potential prey. I went down to her. In a group of flower pots overflowing with annuals was a small possum. I'd seen two in our yard before so I wasn't that surprised. Joli's nose was within a foot of the possum. The possum was cornered. It was hissing. Joli was so interested in this small animal that she growled at me to let me know how unhappy she was at being told to get inside and let the possum go on its way.

After about 15 minutes I let Joli out again to see what she would do. She immediately went to the spot where she had confronted the possum. She took a minute or two to investigate that area then set off on a complete patrol sniffing every inch of our yard and garden. She seemed sure the possum was still around. Its persistent odor told her to keep searching.

For the next two days she repeated this very complete search every morning to no avail. Only when there was no residual scent left was she finally convinced the possum was gone.

As chance would have it the Times Sunday Book Review this past week featured Inside of a Dog: What dogs see smell & know by Alexandra Horowitz, a psychology professor at Barnard College, Columbia University. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/13/books/review/Schine-t.html?_r=1&em

Professor Horwitz contends that we can only discover what our canine companions are thinking by trying to understand how they experience the world, their umwelt as it were. The key to understanding a dog is to realize that dogs primarily sniff the world. “As we see the world, the dog smells it. The dog's universe is a stratum of complex odors. The world of scents is at least as rich as the world of sight.” http://insideofadog.com/

A dog not only has a much larger area in their nose and brain devoted to smelling, they constantly renew the air in their noses so they continue to smell things long after we humans can sense no odor at all. Recent research into the mechanics of sniffing shows it to be a complex phenomena that allows a dog to exchange the air in its nostrils without inhaling or exhaling. Humans are just not very well equipped to sniff.

For me St. Louis is the strong smell of hops on a south wind; for Joli it's the subtile scent of opossum.

Chado - The Way of Tea

The Japanese Festival is one of the premier events at the Missouri Botanical Garden, a/k/a Shaw Garden, after its founder, Henry Shaw. Held every Labor Day weekend, it attracts thousands. When we first visited Shaw Garden last fall we were astonished to find it contains a 14-acre formal Japanese garden. This part of the garden is named Seiwa-en, which means “the garden of pure, clear harmony and peace.” http://www.outside-in.com/seiwa-en/index2.html A four-acre lake is complemented with waterfalls, streams, bridges and water-filled basins. Dry gravel gardens are raked into rippling patterns. Carefully placed islands rise from the lake. Largest of these is Nakajima. It crosses the lake, connected to each bank by traditional bridges. We were both drawn to Nakajima, but the entrances were barred.

We learned that Nakajima is a sacred teahouse island reserved for tea ceremonies that are held one weekend each year in a traditional soan, or “farm hut style” teahouse, a gift from Missouri's sister state of Nagano, Japan. This soan was built in Japan, shipped to St. Louis, reassembled by Japanese craftsmen, and dedicated with a Shinto ceremony in 1977. http://www.mobot.org/hort/gardens/japanese/teahouse/index.shtml

Merry and I resolved to attend a tea ceremony and see the island. We finally did last Sunday, September 6, but not without a little drama.

Chado, forty minute tea ceremonies, are held on Nakajima 6 times a day for the three days of the Japanese festival. Each seating is restricted to 12 people. Tickets can only be purchased at the entrance to teahouse island one hour before the seating. We planned to go Saturday early.

Saturday dawned gray. Thunder could be heard just before a sustained downpour started. When we reached Shaw Garden at 9 am it was still pouring. We were told at the gate that the three early seatings of Chado had been cancelled. We went in anyway and enjoyed the garden in the rain. We toured the Bonsai exhibit, listened to some traditional drumming, ate, and watched people. Merry has some terrific photos of this visit on her blog http://meredithleonard.blogspot.com/

We decided to come back the next day to try again. When we reached the gate we were told due to the threatening weather the ceremony would be held in a room indoors. The disappointment was too much for me. I decided to leave, but Merry wanted to stay and experience Chado, even in a much reduced form. I got in the car and started to exit when I saw Merry running toward me. Plans had changed, the ceremony would be in the teahouse on the island unless it started raining again. Merry ran ahead to stand in line to buy tickets.

An hour later we meet our guide by the Arbor of the Plum Wind. He opens the outer gate that bars the bridge to the island. As we walk he explains the design of the “roji” garden. The outer garden called “soto-roji” is paved with broad stepping stones laid in a sweeping arc. The plants are simple, small shrubs, no flowers. This is a transition area where we can walk without being required to pay much attention as we leave our daily cares behind.

At the end of the arc we come to two parallel rows of thick trimmed bamboo that narrows the focus dramatically. Now the path is paved with uneven tobi-ishi stones, slowing the gait and encouraging much closer attention. An inner gate opens to a courtyard of raked brown gravel. A stone basin filled with water sits by the entrance for symbolic cleansing. Three boulders rise from the gravel sea, two bigger ones on the right, a smaller on the left.

The teahouse is a small room in a simple hut with a tile roof, rough wooden pillars and mud walls. Bamboo hedges screen it entirely from any view off the island. The room has an alcove with a calligraphy scroll and some fresh flowers, and an alcove for the host to prepare tea. The scroll is white, with only four characters: wa [harmony], kei [respect], sei [purity], jaku [tranquility]. The floor is covered by four and a half bamboo tatami mats. One wall is open to the weather, but this is not the door, rather a window. The door is along the side, so small it must be crawled through. We learn only seven of us can enter, the rest will be served tea in the courtyard. I'm right by the entrance. I slip off my shoes and crawl in first.

I'm told to sit in the “least honored guest” spot nearest the host. The last guest across from me will be honored by being served first. Our host is Professor Kimiko Gunji of the University of Illinois. She is assisted by three of her students and a young girl in a beautiful red kimono.

Our host trained in Kyoto to be a tea master in the tradition of the Urasenke school. http://www.urasenke.or.jp/texte/chado/chado2.html She leads us through the simple steps. She carefully cleans the utensils. Powered green tea is wisked into a foam in hot water. You eat a sweet cookie and candy. A bowl of tea is carefully placed before you. You offer your tea to the guest seated to your left. They politely refuse. You drink the tea. The bowls are collected. http://japanhouse.art.uiuc.edu/oldsite/tea/1/1_TOC.html

Every move is choreographed. The utensils are beautiful. Every thing encourages contemplation.

We reluctantly leave the teahouse. We linger in the courtyard. Finally, we cross a wooden drum bridge and return to the rest of the garden.

The forty minutes on the island was one of the most peaceful meditations I've experienced. It opened a small space in my consciousness. I feel ready.

Blog 52

This is my 52^nd weekly blog. When I started this project last September I was unsure whether I could or would be able to write an interesting short entry every week, but I've gradually learned the rhythms. I find the discipline it imposes helpful. I write for an hour a day from about 4-5 am. This fits my schedule as an early riser and pleases Joli the dog. She's in the mood for play, pats and eating her daily meal as I write. I work on a few different story ideas each week. Often I don't settle on the final topic until Saturday morning, then I assemble the fragments, rewrite, have Merry edit the result and get her help finding the appropriate photographs mostly from those she's shot during the week.

In retrospect I'm glad I decided to also post these reflections on the internet. Since I started posting to Blogger back in March, about 800 people have visited my site. Thanks to a handy little tool called Sitemeter I can tell a bit about each visit. By far the most visits were from people who somehow already had my web address. The pages with the next highest number of visits due to the use of search engines like Google were the stories about towboats, catfish, Lemp Junque, Devil's Back and the black fly derby. I have no idea why these subjects are the most popular. The average number of daily visitors has increased over time with my current average at 8. I've had hits from all over the world, but most are from Central NY and the St. Louis area.

The number of visits to my site jumped dramatically when I got a plug from Bob Crowe, a local lawyer who posts the amazing blog called “St. Louis Daily Photo.” Bob mentioned his photography hobby in court last spring and gave me his blog address. I've been faithfully checking his site on a daily basis since. He has a terrific eye for portraits. His weekly photographs of the St. Louis Arch are a revelation. Check him out at http://saintlouismodailyphoto.blogspot.com/

Bob's photo blog inspired Merry to start her own daily photo blog and join the group of dedicated amateur photographers who record daily events in cities around the world. Merry's blog can be found at http://meredithleonard.blogspot.com/. Merry's daily posts also appear on the site of City Daily Photo where you can find beautiful images of everything imaginable. I recommend this site highly, but be warned, you can easily spend hours at http://www.citydailyphoto.com/portal/index.php. Merry and I were both surprised about a month ago when a fellow in England decided to include our blogs in an index he maintains of all the blogs he can find focused on specific localities. He includes blogs that are active as well as those with no current posts. His site called “Around the World” is a treasure trove of photos and written reflection at http://www.geraldengland.co.uk/dp/

Using the internet to post publicly accessible personal reflections started in the mid 90s. The first blog is credited to a Swarthmore College student, Justin Hall, who started Links.net in January 1994. The term “weblog” was coined by John Barger in 1997 as a contraction for “logging the web.” Peter Merholtz shortened “weblog” to “blog” in April 1999. The first free web tool for blogging was “Blogger” released by Pyra in August 1999. When Google bought Blogger in 2003 it had 200,000 active users. http://www.webopedia.com/quick_ref/history_of_blogging.asp Now there are a host of free tools for blogging and millions of users.

As a result it is now possible to catch quite intimate glimpses of life everywhere on the globe. There are also blogs on politics, sports, and some that are just plain crazy rants. Major news outlets have gradually come to style their web-based presentations after blogs and promote feedback from readers. My favorites are those that just focus on the surprises, mystery and beauty of everyday life. I enjoy the images. Most people who post such entries love the places they live and want to share that love with others. It promotes understanding in a way not possible before the development of the blogosphere.

Another big advantage for me is the heartfelt response some of my posts draw from you. The post last week about cleaning out my mother's house brought a number of quite beautiful email replies from those of you who have done the same, or who anticipate the experience. Thank you Barbara, Chris, Margaret, Allison, Aaron, Kerry and Dan for sharing your stories.

Now, on to year two.

Leaving home

This past week Merry, Joli & I were in Hanover, PA getting my mother's house ready for sale. My mother died in May at the age of 95. She was still living on her own in the house at 103 Third St. where she lived since the early 1950s. The house was built by my grandfather, William E. Pitts, around 1909 when he opened Hanover Heel & Innersole Co. Grandfather Pitts wanted his immediate family to live together so he built a nearly identical house right next door at 101 Third St. with separate apartments upstairs and down for his older children. When I was born my parents lived upstairs at 101. My father and his brother Bill managed the factory after my grandfather died. When my grandmother moved to Florida, we moved into 103. Because the house has been continuously occupied by the Pitts family for 100 years it accumulated layers and layers and layers of stuff.

My brother, Rick and his wife, Andy, worked steadily on cleaning out the house ever since mom died. They collected and donated her clothing. They sifted through and removed several layers of once treasured but now useless stuff from the attic. They diligently worked on the task of sorting drawers stuffed with stuff that had not been touched for decades.

I only had a week. When we arrived I sat down with my brother to make a plan. We agreed that Labor Day was a good target date for the end of the clean-out. We didn't know how we would get everything done by then, but it seemed like a good idea to pick a date. Merry ordered a big dumpster so we could more speedily proceed with the clean out. I decided to interview auctioneers and firm up hiring a real estate agent. My brother agreed to come back on Tuesday so we could do more planning. It would be an understatement to say we were daunted. We took a deep breath and began.

Interviewing an auctioneer is a unique experience. I walked through the house, top to bottom with two of them separately as they sized up the assorted stuff. Both are extremely experienced, with well established reputations. Both are named Randy. Randy #1 started working at the age of 5 at his father's auction house. Randy #2 started working at auctions 30 years ago while still in High School. Both had very convincing sales presentations. Randy #1 argued for an on-site auction in the house. Randy #2 wanted to do the auction at a hall rented from a local church. The costs worked out about the same. I decided to make a decision on Tuesday with my brother.

Meeting the auctioneers clarified our task considerably. They told us we were on the right track. They acknowledged we had done a good job so far, but both were a bit worried we would trash something valuable. Nothing more was to be put in boxes that they would just have to unpack later. Things should be left in place. Our job was to focus on finding and removing the personal items and the pure trash. Washing all the glassware would also help. They assured us they would clean out the house. Great. Labor Day was starting to look possible. My mood lightened a little.

At a pleasant dinner Tuesday my brother and I decided to hire Randy #2 to conduct an off-site auction.

For the rest of the week Merry and I hauled trash to the dumpster and searched for personal stuff. I went through about 1000 books and piles of dusty brittle papers in the attic piling the trivial and the terminally water damaged (and old Reader's Digests) into garbage bags that I hauled down to the dumpster. Merry sorted and washed every dish and piece of brick-a-brack in the kitchen and china closet. At one point I was reduced nearly to tears on discovering my mother had kept box after box of treasured stones collected during her trips. Hundreds of stones came to light in the garage, attic, cupboards, in mayonnaise jars in closets. I carefully piled them all in one spot by the driveway. We plodded on and on every day until we collapsed.

By Friday morning I just wanted to flee. I had to push myself to return to the house one last time. Merry seemed to be holding up better as she washed more dishes. I opened drawers to find old ashtrays, newspaper clippings, and tablecloths. I felt out of breath and anxious. I couldn't concentrate or decide what to keep or pitch. I told Merry I couldn't go on. I was on the verge of tears or possibly hysteria. Quite suddenly Mer also wanted to bolt. We just downed tools, locked the door and drove away. We left a lot undone.

I doubt I'll return to my boyhood home. I've been going back ever since I left for college in 1966. Now my ties are broken. I mourn the loss. I'm also happy to be free of the weight. It hard get a handle on this feeling. I hope to understand it better someday. For now I'm just happy to be back to my life in St. Louis.

Cotton Module Builder

When I hear cases in Cape Girardeau I often encounter claimants who had jobs unique to the region. I've written before about interviewing a tow boat deckhand. In case you missed that one you can read it here: http://edpitts.blogspot.com/2009/05/towboat.html. I've also taken some pretty interesting testimony from a crop duster tender. This week it was a cotton module builder.

In every hearing I follow a general outline of questions. I start by getting a vocational background. The claimant is a fellow in his later 40s from the “bootheel” of Missouri. There are no cities in this section of far southeastern Missouri. Its agriculture has more in common with Texas and Alabama than the rest of Missouri. It's flat Mississippi bottom land. They grow a lot of cotton.

Within the first minutes of the hearing I always ask how far the the claimant went in school, whether they had any special vocational training and whether they served in the military. To this last introductory question this claimant replied he had been in the army for a few weeks.

“A few weeks?”

“Yeah, they threw me out. They said I had an attitude problem; that I wasn't suited.”

“What happened?”

“Well, Judge, you see they made us take a swimming test. When I jumped in I got water in my nose so I crawled out. They said I had to get back in and tread water. I can't do it the way they wanted. I told them, but they threatened to throw me in the brig if I didn't jump back in. The Sargent yelled at me what if you have to abandon ship? Don't you want to know how to tread water? I told him that if I had to abandon ship I'd wear a life vest and if they'd give me a life vest I'd jump right back in the pool. They threw me out after that, you know, for talking back.”

The vocational expert smiled. The claimant's lawyer was grinning under his walrus mustache. I liked this guy. He claimed to be a slow learner, but he was showing a good deal of common sense, not to mention foolish courage.

I moved on to past jobs. He had a hard time keeping one for long. They were all heavy labor, farm and factory work. I asked him about the field work he had done.

“Judge, I worked building modules one season for about seven days, but my condition kept me from doing it.”

“Did you say modules?”

“Yup, you know, cotton modules.”

“No, I don't. I'm new to Missouri. What's a cotton module?”

“Well you sit on this big machine and pull levers.” He put each hand out in front of his chest and pantomimed a slow alternate pumping movement. “It packs the cotton down.”

I was unable to visualize anything. I tried a few more questions, but he just kept pumping his hands out and back. I looked at the vocational expert. She shrugged as if to say she didn't know either. The claimant's lawyer cleared his throat.

“Judge, maybe I can help here. Back in the old days when cotton was harvested they would dump in into wagons then field hands would climb on top and pack it down with their feet. When a wagon was full they would haul it to the gin. This took a lot of wagons and was very time consuming. Nowadays there is a machine that looks a bit like a garbage truck that builds huge modules of cotton right on the ground in the fields. It uses a hydraulic ram to pack the cotton then these huge modules are hauled to the gin for processing. The operator sits like in a tractor cab and pulls two levers to operate the ram.”

“OK, now I sort of get it. Does operating these levers take much force?”
“No Judge, it's pretty easy, but I just couldn't do it. They had to let me go.”

To get a better idea of how the module builder works take a look at this short video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hz_mmyeVIvc, for those who need to know even more about the advent of this quite significant agricultural innovation see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotton_module_builder.

As the hearing was drawing to a close I ask whether the claimant has a driver's license. This fellow said he didn't. Why was that? He lost it after a conviction for DWI.

“But Judge, I wasn't even driving! See this buddy of mine was with me and we were both pretty drunk. When the cops pulled us over he was driving. They didn't arrest me, but they took his car, so I rode along to the jail. They locked him up, but let me go, see. I went out, but it was winter and I didn't have a coat. I walked along a row of cop cars until I found one unlocked with the keys in it. I got in and started it up and turned on the heater. Well, after a while I got on the radio and tried to call one of my friends to come get me. That's when the cops came out and arrested me, and I wasn't even driving. I guess I done some pretty dumb things when I get drunk.”

I believed him.

McKinley Heights neighbors

Maybe if it hadn't happened in one day, I wouldn't have noticed.

6 am, walking to the bus, a neighbor I never particularly noticed called out to me.

“Hey, haven't seen you lately, thought you might've moved.”

I quickly explained that Merry had driven me to work in the mornings for the last couple of weeks.

“OK then. Have a good one.”

As I continued to the bus stop I was amazed. Had I ever seen this guy before? Of course, I must have. I probably passed him every day; a middle aged black guy in work clothes getting into his car the same time I headed for the bus. I must have seen him. Probably nodded to him in passing or said hi.

Later on the way home, I hopped off the bus at the same corner. There's a talkative short black guy with wrap around dark glasses who usually gets off at the same stop every day. I've said hello to him frequently. He's a janitor at a senior housing unit across town. As the bus was just pulling away he turned to me with a surprised look on his face.

“Where's your bag, man? Do I have to help you stop the bus?”

I do carry a brief case most days. Today I decided I didn't need it.

“Thanks, I left my case home today.”
“Oh, alright then. Didn't want you to lose it.”
“Thanks, for keeping me straight, have a good weekend.”

“You, too.”

Two times in one day on the same street corner made me wonder how much casual neighbors notice me. I remembered another example from about a month earlier on the same street corner. I woman often walks her Boston Terrier on the other side of the street in the evening the same time I take Joli for her constitutional. I had said hi to her a couple of times from across the street. On this occasion we had changed the time of our walk for a few days by half an hour because I had worked late.

“Hey, you doing OK?” She called out across the busy street. “Haven't seen you for a while.”

“I'm fine, thanks for asking.”

It finally dawned on me that I live in a neighborhood.

I vaguely recall reading the classic description of what makes a neighborhood in Street Corner Society by William Foote Whyte in my first sociology course many years ago. One key factor is that neighbors recognize and acknowledge each other. Making the slightest contact by saying “Hi” makes the stranger into a neighbor. Nice feeling. Neighbors look out for each other.

It was about this time last year we decided to move to Ann Ave. in McKinley Heights. Now without my particularly noticing it's becoming our neighborhood.

Devil's Back

This weekend we finally got to put our canoe in the water in Missouri. The weather was predicted to be hot Saturday, heading toward 100° with no thunderstorms. I left work an hour early on Friday, we loaded our camping gear and the tandem canoe and set out for the banks of the Bourbeuse River. Its name is French for “muddy” but in true Missouri style it's pronounced “burr-bus.” It's an interesting stream on the north-eastern edge of the Ozarks. The Bourbeuse River is one of two major tributaries of the Meramec River. Even though it's only an hour's drive from St. Louis it has a nice remote feel. The section we paddled, or to use the local term “floated,” was from Peter's Ford to just before Noser Mill. These points are less than two miles apart by dirt road, but 7.5 miles apart by river. Throughout its entire length it twists back on itself over and over. The total length of the river is 147 miles but the airline distance between source and mouth is only 53 miles.

We decided to camp near the river to get an early start on Saturday before it got too hot. We also needed to find a way to shuttle our car or canoe. The best way to do both these things turned out to be Devil's Back Floats.

We turned off I-44 at Union where US 50, the old national road, heads west. Outside Beaufort we left 50, crossed the river for the third time then turned down a little side road. Where the side road dead ends at the old bridge, closed but not torn down, we turned down a farm road. A little way back is a sturdy farm house with an old Coleman plastic cooler canoe planted as a flower bed in the yard and about a dozen outbuildings. We were greeted at the roadside by Dolores Swoboda. We paid $20 cash for two nights camping ($5 each per night, dogs free) and $10 for the canoe shuttle the next morning. The dirt road continued down a very steep bank to a soybean field in the bottomland. The Bourbeuse makes a giant hairpin loop here creating a plain that floods every spring. The campground consists of a few picnic tables along the stream bed under a canopy of mature silver maples. The amenities consisted of a concrete boat ramp and a single hole latrine. Only two other parties were camping there. Perfect.

After we set up camp we heard Lester Swoboda coming by on his camo four-wheeler delivering firewood. We waived him down to find out where to get water.

“There's a spigot on that concrete building up at the house. It's straight out our deep well. Won't get better water anywhere.”

We snacked and watched the river flow as the evening came on. A red pick-up backed a boat trailer down the ramp and dropped off a john boat, tricked out for fishing. When they tried to exit the ramp they were stuck. They had backed down too far. Their back wheels had dropped off the end of the concrete into the silty river bottom. After a few minutes futilely spinning their tires only to dig in even deeper, they jumped into their car and left. A little while later they were followed back down the hill by Lester with his big tractor. We wondered if he sat on his porch waiting until he heard fools spinning their wheels off the boat ramp.

When Merry took the attached picture, the woman with this bunch warned her not to post it on the internet. Later that evening another red pick-up did the same thing when trying to pull their boat out of the river. Instead of getting the tractor, this group of geniuses all piled on the tailgate and burned rubber until they finally exited in a thick cloud of blue smoke.

At about 8 am the next morning we were picked up by the daughter of the family in a big white four-wheel drive truck. We loaded the canoe and headed down two miles of gravel road to Peter's Ford. I asked why their farm is called Devil's Back. Well, it seems that in olden days the road through the farm was the main road to a ford of the river that would take you to the town of Leslie where there was a railroad depot. The road runs a mile or so along a ridge with steep drops on both sides before descending to the river. Farmers would drive their teams of horses along the ridge but as they descended there was a place where the road was exposed on both sides. Supposedly horses would spook at this point and sometimes tip the load over the side of the bluffs. Farmers came to call the place the “devil's back.” The name stuck.

We had a great day of canoeing. The first half of our trip consisted of some paddling, but mostly navigating rock gardens around gravel bars. Limestone cliffs run along the left side of the stream and sometimes the stream undercuts the bluffs making for beautiful moss and fern gardens, as well as some tricky paddling. About halfway along the bluffs cross to the right side and the river deepens. Now there are fewer gravel bars. The current slows, and slows, and slows, until we could detect none at all. We were hot and tired. Our backs were getting sore. The campground had to be just around the next bend, then it was. We pulled out, then fell back and let the warm stream soothe our muscles.

Ah! Canoeing.