When the River Becomes Surreal

Just a little shorty

as I'm headed out west and will hopefully 

have LOTS to write about.

My final visit to the Peace River

had all the qualities of a feverish dream

that verged on nightmarish at times.

The main nightmare was that I didn't find this first!!!

These are associated pieces of mammoth tusk.

Judging by the size and location of the hole they came out of, the tusk was exposed by low water levels and I paddled past it at least 2 times, maybe 4, without noticing it.

The nightmare of it is not only that I didn't find the rest of the chunk of tusk (the hole indicated that it was just a chunk that was discovered) but the person that did find it left behind all this associated material, just taking the best chunk.  

That makes me feel a bit queasy.

I would have lovingly glued everything back together.

Further along the river was the queasiest part

of the nightmare.

I was about to paddle past a family group that was fishing when I noticed a teen boy in the group manning a fish stringer.  I called out, "Whatcha got on that stringer?"

The teen pulled up the stringer to show me a large bass and that is when I noticed a large gun in his other hand.  The hammer was back and his finger was on the trigger while he fumbled with the stringer.  I don't know a lot about guns but I know the gun looked real and the boy was not safely indexing his finger away from the trigger.  If it was a fake gun, then it was the kind of fake gun that people get killed over, because it looked extremely real.

I've never had any problems on the river, knock on wood, but I'm always aware of what's going on around me.

Now, off to rattlesnake country!

I downloaded a book to read for the trip:

So appropriate for someone obsessed with the Peace River. :-)