Float the Palouse 2009

Last Sunday, on a day that was not nearly as sunny as this photo, an intrepid group of 10 people braved the "mighty" Palouse River!
As you can see by the sky and our clothes it was not the bright, sunny day pictured above. Sueann Ramella our "Morning Edition" host is wearing the bright, blue jacket. We were a very international crew; more on that later.

Before we embarked I recited the first stanza of E. E. Cumming's poem "i thank You God for most this amazing day."

i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday;this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any--lifted from the no
of allnothing--human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

And with that we embarked!


That clump of trees behind us and to the left is where I took photos of the beavers last spring. If you scroll down through my older blog postings you can see the pictures, taken from the bridge at the south end of the city of Palouse. My goal for next year is to get the Palouse Chamber of Commerce to make a regional event out of the trip.


You can see Bruce Bradberry, our "Weekend Edition" host looking resplendent in his brightly colored sea kayak, wet suite and life vest. Bruce would often shoot ahead down the river where we would eventually find him facing us near the river bank, his arms folded with a beatific expression on his face.

Our "Internationals" as we dubbed Nikko (from Germany) and Kristen (from South Korea) had their work cut out for them in their two person raft. This raft seemed strangely attracted to the shoreline and they made slow progress. Kudos to Nikko for manning this unruly raft and for Kristen who had never been in a raft before and was brave enough to try something different!

We added further international spice to our trip with Yvonne (from Chile via Germany.) Also in the big raft were George, Lois, Sueann and me along with our coxswain Ben who did a magnificent job of steering us around the rocks. Unfortunately, we came upon a rather large one without any of us sighting it and Ben and Sueann took a spill. No injuries were incurred but I know that they were wet and miserable. Our other kayaker, Corey, also took a spill but the three of them soldiered on with no complaints. I was pretty impressed as we were only halfway through the trip at that point and it was not a warm day. Bravo!


And here we are just before the finish line at the beautiful ghost town of Elberton where Nikko's aunt and uncle were waiting for us with hot, delicious soup! Thanks!



If you follow the Palouse River through Colfax, past Dusty and beyond you'll eventually come to the spectacular Palouse Falls.



Flickr photo

Maybe you'll make the trip one day! Just be sure and go before the water level gets too low sometime in May.