Monday Photo Feature

I mentioned yesterday that I paddled a section of the St. Francis River in the Arkansas Delta.  This section was completely flat and slow-moving.  But way upriver, in the Missouri Ozarks, the "Saint" has a different complexion.  Here's a shot of me paddling my whitewater C1 on the Saint near Fredericktown, Missouri, at the end of 2007.  My attire suggests that it must have been cold that day.

I learned to paddle as a summer camper on Class II-III streams in western North Carolina.  I spent most of my 20s trying to paddle all the whitewater I could get myself on.

These days I love paddling whitewater as much as I ever did, but I do it less, mostly because I'm happy at home and need my arm twisted more than I used to to get in the car and drive many hours to whatever river is running.  I think it's been about a year and a half since my last time on a mountain stream.  But with the heavy summer heat descending upon Memphis and the Mid South, I may be getting back in my whitewater boat sooner rather than later.

Photo by Maria Crusius.