The Wateree River: Day 4
Last evening, Jerry and I had found an excellent campsite just in the nick of time. But we’d had no time to enjoy it. So we’ll pick things up with the two very refreshed travelers awakening to the sounds of birdsong and the whisper of the river just as the light was getting strong enough to see inside the tent.
The Wateree River: Day 3
Yesterday on the Wateree ended with Jerry feeling much better, which was an incredible relief. When you’re in the middle of nowhere, an illness or injury that might not be serious back in the comforts of civilization can be life-threatening. We’ll start our third day on the river a little before daybreak, at our lovely campsite on a bend in the Betty Neck Swamp.
The Wateree River: Day 2
We left Jerry and myself sleeping fitfully under the I-20 Bridge over the Wateree, hoping that the river didn’t wake us unexpectedly in the night. When we awoke, just before dawn, the tent was still mercifully free of riverwater. But it sounded as though every semi east of the Mississippi was crossing the bridge above our weary heads.
The Wateree River: Day 1
For our third annual river trip, my good friend Jerry Craven and I decided to expand our horizons beyond the borders of the Lone Star State. I lived in South Carolina back in the 1990s when I was getting my MFA, and I canoed many of the Palmetto State’s rivers then. One that I missed was the Wateree. So when Jerry and I made up our minds to do a South Carolina river, in honor of my move back to the Palmetto State, the Wateree seemed like a natural choice. For Jerry’s and my May 2009 trip, we canoed the fifty-mile stretch from the Lake Wateree Dam to the Highway 76/378 Bridge about halfway between Columbia and Sumter. We took four days to complete the trip, but could easily have done it in three. But the idea was to savor the river and the good company in my trusty Pelican Colorado canoe, rather than just to get from Point A to Point B.
The Brazos River: Day 4
We left Jerry and myself sitting beside a bonfire and sipping cool intoxicants beneath a carpet of bright stars. Jerry might even have been telling a fish story or two. We’ll pick up just after sunrise, with Jerry back on the riverbank starting our last day on the river by trying to catch the biggest bass in the Brazos.
The Brazos River: Day 3
We left our intrepid, but exhausted, travelers sleeping like dead men on a high sandbank overlooking the Brazos River. We find them again just after dawn, taking in a sunrise made particularly lovely by the Gulf clouds carried up by the south wind that blew all night.
The Brazos River: Day 2
When we left Jerry and myself, we were sitting next to a roaring fire, enjoying the sounds of nightbirds and coyotes, and the whisper of John Graves’s river passing by our camp. We’ll pick up just before sunup, as the dawn breeze flapping the tent wakes us to a perfectly clear sky.
The Brazos River: Day 1
I’ll continue this blog with Jerry Craven’s and my trip down the Brazos River in May 2008. We did the forty-five mile stretch between the Highway 16 Bridge just below the Possum Kingdom Dam and the Highway 180 Bridge outside Mineral Wells in my trusty flatbottom green Pelican Colorado canoe. It took us four days; but if we had pushed, we could easily have done it in three. Jerry and I were in no hurry, though. We were both excited to experience this stretch of river that John Graves immortalized in his haunting “Goodbye to a River,” and to see whether the river in its present incarnation measured up to the river as captured by Graves.
The Colorado River: Day 4
When we left our intrepid explorers, they were camped in a soggy bog of a site somewhere between Colorado Bend State Park and Lake Buchanan. We’ll pick up as they awaken in their tent to the serenade of an unexpected visitor . . .
The Colorado River: Day 3
When we left Jerry Craven and myself, we were camped on an island in the middle of the Colorado River, savoring cool beverages and the serenade of a hoot owl. We’ll continue the next morning, just before dawn…
