Alright we're now 6 weeks out.  Josh, who has never been a slave to strict schedules, already has his canoe on the trailer so it's time to start looking at maps and it's not too early to start thawing those chickens either.

Nothing has revealed itself to me yet, but early indications are the Duck River is our likely destination.   We've been on the Buffalo three trips in a row now and for a 3-nighter the Duck just feels right because it's an old friend.  It's our Brazos - complete with floods, Indian history, legendary characters like Mrs. Cooper and Felix Zollicoffer  and George Dickel and Vernon Taylor, plus rare species found only on the Duck like the Pink Heelsplitter and the Dromedary Pearlymussel and the Cumberland Candiru.

We gave up on trying to do the entire Duck (although we only have less than 3 miles to complete the Buffalo, which is tempting) because the lower end is wide and boring with no gravel bars.  But there are still some upstream sections we have not done.  Having said that, while we have never repeated an entire trip, we will almost certainly overlap with parts of the river we've done previously.  In some ways that will be kind of nice because some of it will be familiar and other parts will be new territory to explore which is always fun.  So look for a PARTIAL repeat of one of the following trips on the upper or middle Duck next month:

Ceder Creek Island, Fall 2005

Hopkins Bridge, Spring 2005

Cortner Mill, Spring 2013

Shelbyville, Spring 2016

That's not all the Duck River trips we've done, just the ones on the upper part where we're probably headed.  The Duck is, afterall, the longest river entirely within our state.  Which is another good reason to go back to it for a three-night, four-day paddle.