We had a really good river all picked out for the fall trip ("I don't mean the whole river, but a piece of it that has had meaning for me during a good part of my life in the way that pieces of river can have meaning. You can comprehend a piece of river." Goodbye to a River, p. 4).
But we chose our piece of river with the assumption that it would be dry this time of year, just like when we went to the lowest part of the Buffalo during the drought of 2007 for the same reason. ("Most autumns, the water is low from the long dry summer, and you have to get out from time to time to wade, leading or dragging your boat through trickling shallows from one pool to the long channel-twisted pool below, hanging up occasionally on shuddering bars of quicksand, making six or eight miles in a day's lazy work." Goodbye to a River, p. 3).
Shallow water also tends to damage the Club's canoes and faces.
So we are not yet ready to announce our destination. Even though it's rained so much this summer, the water level could easily be right back down by the end of October and we may stick to the original plan. Or we may go with a "spring" river.
Either way, now that we have conquered Chicago we know we will be getting back to our Middle Tennessee roots and will float a nice, lazy, friendly local stream with lots and lots of gravel bars. Two nighter.
We also know that the kitchen staff has been doing more planning than the logistics staff, and it sounds like they, too, are excited about getting back to a river where cast iron is allowed.
More details on both of these subjects soon.
