We left Boston, MA, and decided that we needed some way to mark the passage of time other than empty coffee cups and the circuitous route of the sun in the sky. So we put a little checklist on the side of the truck to mark our progress toward the promised land of BC whitewater.
Here, Dan is writing the checklist on the side of the truck outside an art store in Reading, MA.
Then we started driving. We drove and drove. We drank lots of coffee. By that evening, we had arrived in Niagra Falls, NY. We got out and took a quick look at the falls and returned to find our car surrounded by Rent-A-Cops hell bent on discouraging us from running the falls in the kayaks on top of the car. Dissapointed, we continued on.
That night, we camped at a State Park in Michigan after driving through Canada for most of the night. In Indiana, it turns out that you can buy fireworks, so we made a brief stop to procure supplies for the rest of the journey.
In this photo, Dan is excited because he has lived a sheltered life and never got to play with fire while growing up.
There's not that much to tell through the middle part of the country. There were many dead animals on the side of the road. It was quite hot and petrol was very expensive.
Then we got to Montana, where my little sister just started college. Missoula is an amazing city, and a real testament to forward thinking, community-oriented western living. Case in point: the brand new play feature that was just finished right in downtown Missoula.
It is an awesome little feature, and supposedly even better with more water.
We arrived in Ellensburg, WA, that evening after driving the whole way in four long days. But the trip wasn't over. Actually it was, but we didn't know yet. The next part of our plan was to meet up with friends Dane and Craig and head up to British Columbia and do some paddling before I needed to start my environmental educating and Dan needed to start working with the national defense dolphins.
Dane and Craig met us the next morning and we headed over to Seattle, and then to the Tumwater Section of the Wenatchee River, which was super low, but fun.
Unfortunately, after getting to Bellingham, our last jumping-off point before British Columbia, we realized that there was actually no water in BC, and the only river that had water actually had too much. Stuck between a rock and a hard place, we headed for beautiful Orcas Island to wait for the water to come down.
From Orcas, we took an adrenaline-filled overnight trip to Patos Island, which was amazingly beautiful. When we returned, some kind of sophisticated hydrodynamical mathematical model that scientists Dan and Dane made confirmed that the river was not going to come down in time for us to paddle it.
Thus, our British Columbian whitewater odyssey ended on Orcas Island, and our group dispersed until the rain starts falling, the snow melting, or everyone fell in love with sea kayaking.
Oh well, what can you do? It was a hell of a summer and a great fall, and there are surely more adventures to come. Special thanks to Bryan Smith of The Range Life (www.therangelife.blogspot.com) for providing us with tons of great beta about water levels in BC. Cheers!
