Yesterday we canoed on the Wading River in the New Jersey Pine Barrens. As a little kid, I drove through the Pine Barrens with my Mom. We stopped at a diner in what seemed like the middle of the night, and Mom told me that the people in the next booth, who appeared from their dress and hairstyles to be living in the nineteenth century, were Pineys. Since then, I've been fascinated by the Pine Barrens, and I wanted to take CC there.On the river yesterday, we saw no Pineys but did see lots of moss. CC took my picture with some giant moss. The moss provided us with moral examples of success against adversary. CC was sad about our impending move from our lovely house (I am too), but we canoed past an island of all moss, and I said, "Look at that moss, I bet it was sad when it had to start growing on that island, but now look at it!" I hope that she felt inspired by the moss. I did!
We canoed around some islands in the Wading and
up a narrow, nearly impassable branch of the river. This enabled me to demonstrate my canoeing special technique, which I call "move it out of the way." In this technique, when we come to an obstacle in our path I climb out of the canoe and into the river, then wrestle the fallen tree branch or whatever is blocking the river onto the bank. Then return to canoe and proceed with paddling. This technique is not endorsed by the Ontario Recreational Canoeing Association.When it started to rain a lot, we were undaunted, because we knew that in
just an hour a bus from the canoe livery was coming to pick us up. Not like the night we were stuck at the Lake of Stimulus, home of the World's Largest Leech.Later yesterday, I fell in a cranberry bog. Then we left the Pine Barrens and bought ice cream from an insolent teenager. Today I have a cold, yuck!
6 comments:
Aside from the invaluable life lessons that one seems to learn when canoeing, every time I read about one of your and CC's canoe adventures, I become more and more convinced that you two have a death wish.
I have not read the post, but I would like to say "Yay! New post!"
That is an incredible story! I have never heard of "Pineys". I find it hard to believe they are real. But that is because I didn't check wikipedia.
Your story of the moss is very compelling. And I got goose bumps when you told of your harrowing ice cream encounter.
Wow, thank you! I am touched that people are still checking my blog even though I went like 2 weeks between posts.
I check it like all the time! Because I knew the day would come when I would read about a moss island. Now that day has come. I will stop reading now.
AXM
Well, you won't read this, but congrats on finding inspiration from a moss island. You, like moss, can do it!
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