Well, I did it again. Made a wonderful trip with the Coosa River Basin Initiative on the Etowah River. This time we did 17 miles from the US 411 bridge to the boat ramp at the soccer fields boat ramp at the by-pass in Rome. I have now officially paddled from Allatoona Dam to Rome. WhooHoo!
On Thursday Freddy gave Nicole and me the go ahead to buy our own sit-on-tops. We got Tarpon 100s at Terrapin Outdoors between Piedmont and Centre. Mine is robin's egg blue and Nicole's is ultramarine blue. We got awesome paddles too. What we didn't get and needed the most were gloves. We both got a few blisters from paddling so long. It took us 8 hours and 15 minutes to complete the paddle with a few stops along the way. It was a really long day. But my the fun we had. It was Nicole's second paddle and very ambitious but even though there came a time when I thought we would have to lash her boat with mine and a fellow paddler's she made it on her own and really felt like she had accomplished something!
It's sort of a thrill just getting in water at 411. It is a class five put-in! It is very steep and muddy. I enlisted four boy scouts to carry Nicole's and my boats. I was lucky to get down the hill to the water without breaking something. I used my paddle as a balancing tool. Not only is the hill slick, muddy, and steep, there is a deep gulley down the middle of it. It is an accomplishment to get in the water! It took nearly twenty minutes to get all the boats and people down the hill and in the water.
Of course I fell out of my boat again. I got stuck on a rock. My paddle was so pretty that I didn't want to scratch it up so foolishly I reached behind me to push with my hand and the next thing you know I was in the water and my boat was floating away. At least this time I had a paddle leash and the gentleman who caught my boat didn't have to chase but one thing down. The problem with falling out of my boat this time was that it was not in deep water. It was in water about two feet deep and I got banged up on the rocks pretty good. I have a very swollen and painful ankle where I burst a blood vessel and a big bruise on my arm. Oh well, it will get better and other than the initial pain it didn't hurt at all until after the end of the paddle when I got home. There's something to be said for adrenalin and endorphins!
We got to the most intact fish weir I have seen on the river so far. This fish weir is at Two Run Creek. It was amazing and the whole group stopped and played in the water. I body surfed with some of the other people and it was so much fun. Quite a refreshing break. These fish weirs are from 500 to 1000 years old and it is amazing to see how intact they still are. They are basically stacked rocks across the river and the native people but them in a V with a point pointing down stream. The men would walk down the V and another would have a basket at the bottom of the V to catch the fish they startled into the basket. I think that was ingenious. It also gives us a little thrill of white water on an otherwise slow river. There are more fish weirs on the Etowah River than all the other rivers in Georgia combined. There are about 36 between Cartersville and Rome and it's been my pleasure to paddle over all of them this summer. I love the white water!
Our next stop was at Ravenel's Cave. This was our lunch stop so we spent about 45 minutes there. On one side of the river there is an ancient cave that probably was used as shelter by the native people. In the Civil War it was used as a salt peter mine. Sherman's troops blew it up. Inside Joe found two orange salamanders. On the other side of the river is a creek with cold, clear water streaming in. This is where my friend, Matt Kerce and his buddies camped on their nine day trip down the Etowah earlier this summer. There is the biggest shoal on the lower Etowah. It is about three to four feet high. Some of us body surfed it, I did too. It was so much fun! Kind of hard on the butt, but once you are over it, you swim toward the shore and once you get in the eddy, the current takes you right back up the river to the shoal so you can do it all over again!
This is such an historic paddle. There are many places where Native Americans lived, worked, and played along this river. Besides the fish weirs there have been many settlements here. There was a large settlement at Two Run Creek. At Tom's Run Creek there is a trestle still standing that was a part of the famous Great Train Chase in the Civil War. At Young's Mill Creek stood Fort Means in 1838, the US Military gathered the Cherokee before their removal to Oklahoma. The soldiers took the Cherokee in their fields and homes. They didn't let them carry anything but the clothes on their backs. It was a dark time for Native Americans here. All of us in the Coosa River Valley live on Cherokee land. We know why they lived here. It is a beautiful, wondrous place. When you are on the river you can still go miles and not see a house. You can paddle and not hear a car but in one or two places on the entire stretch. It makes you wonder at the beauty of God's world.
My favorite place on this part of the river is Reynold's Bend. At its approach is a small island with its high side facing upstream. If one had time this would be a great place to swim. You could jump of the high side into the cool water. Of course, Nicole and I are the slowest paddlers and we didn't get to swim this time, but there is always another time. The river makes a tight curve at the bend and when you come around the point it looks like a different river. There are huge rock faces on river left. If you look around you just might find a rope swing hanging in a big poplar tree. The river narrows here and there is a cool canopy of trees above you.
Once you get to Dykes Creek there are two fish weirs in a row. These are the last fish weirs on the Etowah. The current of the water picks up. It is refreshing and you know that there is only a couple of more miles to go. It took Nicole and me a long time to get this far and we thought it would take about another forty-five minutes to get to the boat ramp. It didn't. With the speed of the current we were able to make it. One of my favorite sites all day was to see Freddy standing on the ramp with his red baseball cap waiting on us. He had called to see where we were. We didn't realize we were just one bend in the river away. He only had to wait about five minutes for us!
This was a wonderful day. I would like to thank a few people who make paddling our rivers so much fun. Joe Cook is our River Keeper. He is a fount of knowledge about all the rivers in Georgia, but his heart lies in the Coosa River Basin and we are proud to know him proud that he fights for the rivers in Northwest Georgia. Alan Crawford is the CRBI volunteer who sets up all our paddles. He spends untold hours registering us for the paddles and greets us at each one. He gives us our maps, takes our money, if any is owed, and sometimes paddles with us. Alan was felled by a disease called sarcoidosis. One day it attacked his nervous system and he couldn't walk. He is amazing. You need to look him up on YouTube. He has let nothing stop him and you can see him skateboarding! He also invented the Crawford Crawler, an aluminum framed contraption with heavy duty wheel chair wheels and straps that allows him to be lowered into the river in his kayak. He puts his faith in the people who hold the rope that puts him in and out of the river. One of the most amazing sights I have ever seen was the people pulling Alan out of the Etowah at 411 on my first paddle! Remember the discription at the beginning of this blog?!? When we put in that day at Euharlee Creek a little boy said he thought that they were going to let him go! I told him that this was NOT Six Flags.
I'd also like to thank the Boy Scouts who carried our kayaks down the treacherous hill. We wouldn't even have gotten started if it hadn't been for them. I'd like to thank Tim who paddled with us Saturday. Not only did he catch my float away boat, but he kept Nicole and me company all day. I'd also like to thank the sweep-man, Chase. Every paddle has a person who stays at the back with the slow paddlers to make sure everybody gets off the river safely. Chase was ours for the day. He was all patience and kindness with Nicole and me. I'd also like to thank Nicole for not giving up. I am so proud of her. It was really something to see my 90 lb. daughter paddle a boat that weighs 52 pounds and more because of the things we carry with us! She was amazing, and she learned that perserverance pays off. I love you honey, I look forward to paddling many more river miles with you.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Labor Day Weekend 2009
Freddy, Nicole, and I just spent a wonderful weekend camping in our motor home at the Rocky Mountain Project in Big Texas Valley just outside Rome. We had a great time and it was so peaceful. We had a campfire two nights out of the four. It rained once and we had to come home on the fourth day. I cooked on the grill. I make BBQ ribs that are out of this world good, and when I have the opportunity to make them over the fire, they are superb, if I do say so myself. I cooked bacon on the grill on Sunday after Freddy and I came back to camp from church. We had stupendous BLTs for our lunch. I found heirloom tomatoes at Kroger before we went. The tomatoes and grilled bacon with crispy crunchy iceburg lettuce was the bomb! I cooked hamburgers on the grill the first night we were there. I like grilling. I have two gas grills, but which is my favorite? The good ole Weber grill, that you use charcoal with. Gas just does not impart the flavors and smokiness that a charcola grill does.
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Scantron forms
Today I bought my first scantron cards for school. You may wonder what they are and why it matters that I had to buy them. They are the forms that one uses to "bubble in" the answers to our multiple choice questions on tests at school, then the professor can run them through a machine that grades them. Why does it matter that I had to buy them? Why am I upset that I had pay a mere 40 cents for them and it upsets me so much? We can also only buy them three at a time because they are in such limited supply in the school bookstore.
Scantron forms are only a symptom of the changes that are happening in the halls of higher learning this year. Yes we know that the economy tanked. Yes we know that the state of Georgia is having a crises in receiving tax revenue because of the economy. We also know that tuition went up. There is also a fee that each student in the state must pay. Last year it was $25.00, this year it went up to $50.00.
On Friday our professors and staff at colleges all across Georgia will be taking a furlough day. There is not enough money in the state coffers to pay our teachers for all the work they do. Many of our professors will not be taking the day off. They will be working in their offices or at home doing the things they do everyday. They are one dedicated lot of people. They just won't be paid for it.
Our scantron forms are not that expensive. It's not like they cost anywhere in the neighborhood of our textbooks, but; if our tuition goes up and our student fees go up could someone in charge have thought that if we buy enough scantron forms for the whole University System of Georgia, the students will not have to pay for them! They certainly would not cost the state anywhere near 40 cents apiece!
We are nearly one week into the school year and the book store at school has not had them but at the first day of school. There was a run on the scantron forms when professors announced in class that we would have to buy them. Some students bought 15-30 according to the book store assistant manager. Today, a week later I was able to buy three. Since I have three classes I should have what I need for my first test in each class. One of my advisers on the Six Mile Post said that now she had to try to schedule her tests for WHEN the book store had scantron forms in stock. I think that borders on the ridiculous.
According to various news outlets like the Rome News-Tribune and all the television local news broadcast, ABC, and CNN when the economy gets bad people go back to school. Attendance is at record levels since the recession began. If our parking lot is any indication, this must be a true statement at GHC! There are at least a third more cars in the lot on Mondays and Wednesdays when I am there. My logic tells me that if attendance is at an all time high in Georgia then tuition and fees should cover small things like scantron forms. My logic also tells me that our professors should not be having to take furlough days because there is not enough money to pay them. I feel yet another letter to our governor, Sonny Perdue coming on. Join my in the cause, write letters to your state representative, the governor, and our lieutenant governor, Casey Cagle. Let them know that this small issue is important.
Scantron forms are only a symptom of the changes that are happening in the halls of higher learning this year. Yes we know that the economy tanked. Yes we know that the state of Georgia is having a crises in receiving tax revenue because of the economy. We also know that tuition went up. There is also a fee that each student in the state must pay. Last year it was $25.00, this year it went up to $50.00.
On Friday our professors and staff at colleges all across Georgia will be taking a furlough day. There is not enough money in the state coffers to pay our teachers for all the work they do. Many of our professors will not be taking the day off. They will be working in their offices or at home doing the things they do everyday. They are one dedicated lot of people. They just won't be paid for it.
Our scantron forms are not that expensive. It's not like they cost anywhere in the neighborhood of our textbooks, but; if our tuition goes up and our student fees go up could someone in charge have thought that if we buy enough scantron forms for the whole University System of Georgia, the students will not have to pay for them! They certainly would not cost the state anywhere near 40 cents apiece!
We are nearly one week into the school year and the book store at school has not had them but at the first day of school. There was a run on the scantron forms when professors announced in class that we would have to buy them. Some students bought 15-30 according to the book store assistant manager. Today, a week later I was able to buy three. Since I have three classes I should have what I need for my first test in each class. One of my advisers on the Six Mile Post said that now she had to try to schedule her tests for WHEN the book store had scantron forms in stock. I think that borders on the ridiculous.
According to various news outlets like the Rome News-Tribune and all the television local news broadcast, ABC, and CNN when the economy gets bad people go back to school. Attendance is at record levels since the recession began. If our parking lot is any indication, this must be a true statement at GHC! There are at least a third more cars in the lot on Mondays and Wednesdays when I am there. My logic tells me that if attendance is at an all time high in Georgia then tuition and fees should cover small things like scantron forms. My logic also tells me that our professors should not be having to take furlough days because there is not enough money to pay them. I feel yet another letter to our governor, Sonny Perdue coming on. Join my in the cause, write letters to your state representative, the governor, and our lieutenant governor, Casey Cagle. Let them know that this small issue is important.
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