September 15, 2007

On this day of Saturday, September 15th, 2007 we met at the Delaware River Visitors Center to do a 16 mile trek from Worthington to Belvedere. Well, I think it was 16 miles. The day began as we stood under a sparsely leaved tree to stay dry from the rain. However, the rain quickly made its way through until it chased a few of us off to the newly built very dry and warm Visitor’s center. Nice place, just needs coffee!

So the weather was looking bad, but we no sooner got to our launch site and voila! There were tads of blue sky above. Next, we zipped along in our shuttles. But wait…we’re not sure WHICH blinking light to turn at. Pull over for a quick look at the map and we move on and make our way to Belvedere. But wait…we took a wrong turn. Fortunately, a local helped our leader find his way and didn’t send us on a wild goose chase through this very old, but cute town. No time lost in this one horse town. We zipped back to Worthington, hopped in our boats and began to enjoy what turned into a beauteous day!

There was a fair amount of riffles that were big enough to dump some water into the boats. The fleeting clouds and tail wind made it a bit chilly when wet. “Time for the skirt”, said I, and so begins the fall when the spray skirt makes its appearance on my boat.

The river moved along quite nicely and was very pretty ride. The 16 miles was virtually painless even for me in my little 10 footer. Oh, and I must say that I was quite fascinated by the dude (Joe? The late guy) who kept standing up in his canoe while paddling.

On the shuttle back to Worthington, we saw the CUTEST little black bear run across the road. Well, maybe not so little. Next was our “après paddle” at the Old Log Cabin (not Luigi’s) where a brew and a feed was enjoyed by all.

So to sum it up, we had rain, wind, sun, clouds, hot, cold, riffles, flat, scenery, graffiti, wildlife, highway noise, quiet, islands, great conversation, food and most of all FUN! A little bit of ‘dis and little bit of ‘dat.

The End

Lori