Simple Shared Experience

It was just dad and me on the river. Not many opportunities come up, so we made this one happen. The French Broad River starts in the North Carolina foothills near my parent’s home, snakes through low farmland, and then cuts through the mountains on its long way to the Gulf of Mexico. It is important to know the local waters. Know how you affect them and how they affect you. So, for a few hours, we paddled a gentle 10 miles under a narrow canopy of green shade, to see part of a waterway that is more than just part of the landscape. At times we pushed our way through while other times we sat and let the current carry us along. What we saw was up close and personal. Some of it we knew by names, like the roadways along its course, the big trees over head, and the wildflowers hanging on the banks. Much of it we didn’t know, like why the muskrat waited so long before dipping below the surface as we floated by, and how many gallons were being pumped up to the dry fields via dangling pipes, and who had tried, but failed, to clear a tree fallen across the full width of the river. But we thought about these sights and talked about their reasons…the latter while we carefully, then forcefully, threaded the empty red canoe through the tangle of downed, wet branches.
We shared experience on the French Broad...simple shared experience.