My Journal

Monday, August 8, 2005 I took a quiet trip in my kayak down the Wood River this afternoon. Due to low water, I didn’t go far – just a half mile or so – but it was a rewarding trip nonetheless. The river, I thought, was especially beautiful because of the shallowness of the water, which made it easy to see the sandy bottom in the sunshine, and which created many short stretches of shining rapids. Of course, the low water meant I had to get out and walk beside the kayak in the rapids, but that allowed me to enjoy the look of the rippling water even more. I drifted downstream until I found a lovely pool beside a sandy bank, where I dropped my anchor and let the kayak come to a rest. It seemed a picture perfect, unspoiled place to me. If a person needed a little serenity in his life, this would be a spot to seek out. The quietness was what I noticed most of all. The only sounds were the occasional song of a distant bird, or the rustling of winds in the high trees, or the ripple of a fish surfacing for food upstream. I leaned back in my comfortable seat and relaxed with my copy of Dickens’ Little Dorrit. As I read a chapter, a blue damselfly periodically landed on the edge of the kayak and stayed there as the breeze slightly ruffled its wings.