Hello, friends. I'm so excited to share that we are within weeks of publishing the book about my River Adventure. It will be titled Digging Deeper, and available soon on Amazon for purchase.
Over the next several days I will post short excerpts here for review and hopefully enjoyment.
Happy holidays to all!
EXCERPT #1
Unruly Nature, Deer Flies Swarm
I had sorely underestimated how long it would take to paddle. Each day I would think This has to be as bad as it will get. Each day, proven wrong. The seventh morning was uneventful, but the afternoon hours of 1 to 5 were infuriating, frustrating and despairing. A headwind blew up and I decided to walk the canoe around a series of coves as I’d done before. Hank was running alongside as usual. We moved around the first cove with seemingly no issue. I noticed Hank was drawing some flies, nothing unusual.
Halfway around the second cove, without warning, I sank to my knees in river silt. Almost losing a shoe, I clung to the side of the canoe, struggling to extract feet from black sludge. Dragging myself and the canoe, I slogged the next few yards to solid ground. Standing there, trying to make sense, I surveyed the cove’s remaining shoreline for rocks, clay, or firm bottom. With none in sight, I decided to swim for it.
As I gripped the canoe line in one hand, stroked with the other, I noticed more flies on Hank, and now they were biting me. As a Midwesterner this did not appear unusual, but maybe I hadn’t thought this through, because with both hands busy, I had no weapon. The insects covered my eyelids, lips, nose and ears. Every few strokes I swiped at my face for a brief respite.
I called Hank. If I could get him in the canoe, I’d try paddling again, but he came caked with flies, chewing on him. I pulled him in and stroked from shore, but the bloodsuckers swarmed us. Hank jerked and twisted to bite back and fell overboard. In his panic, the dog swam toward shore instead of the canoe and I turned around, reentering the bug battle to grab Hank. In between strokes I used my camp towel to swat flies, taking out a half-dozen every swing, there were so many.
By the fourth cove the boat was infested with little flying monsters, eating our flesh. Poor Hank's back and head were so covered with flies that I couldn’t keep him onboard. He went into the water once more, snapping away. He had not ceased crashing into the water, swimming, rolling, and running since the second cove.
I walked around the fifth cove and hit more mud, sinking to my thighs. The wind was so strong, with paddling going nowhere, that I swam for it again. We seemed to pick up new colonies of bloodsuckers in each cove. I feverishly swatted at flies, attached to my lips, ears, and even eyelids, until swimming the last cove before a rocky point. By this time, I might have jumped ship for a plane ticket to New Orleans. If there were a road at hand, or a cell signal, I might have quit then.
Twenty yards offshore, I called for Hank and pulled myself up into the canoe, continuing to fight flies, taking out swaths with the towel. I waited for Hank to swim out and lifted him in the boat a final time; we were both exhausted. I put up the sail to catch a crosswind and that did the trick, carrying us a hundred yards offshore with few flies to bother us. I later learned that an epic hatch in deer flies had attacked us, a 100-year event; fantastic.
Soon at camp, the sun threw off its last rays of the day, setting the distant peaks ablaze. I reflected on strength of the human spirit—and animal spirit—it was practically limitless, especially for survival. Flies faded in mind as I soaked in the beautiful sunset, strategizing for coming days.