Paddling By

Well, I am sitting at a computer in the apartment above the H.C. Porter gallery in Vicksburg. We walked into the gallery and started looking around. Next thing we knew, we were chatting with H.C. Porter herself (She goes by Chris). She invited us to spend the night, and we agreed.

Chris is best known for her “Backyards and Beyond” collection which is a set of photos she took of Mississippians after hurricane Katrina. She then silk screens the black and white photos onto canvas and paints over them, creating a very stylish mix of striking colors and black and white images. She does an excellent job capturing people and their surroundings.

Anyway, we have had an excellent time here, and enjoyed our conversations with Chris and Karole. People have been overwhelmingly kind to us. Chris offered to let us sleep in her house and gave us the key to her studio after knowing us for only about 15 minutes. I hope that I can be so friendly, hospitable, and trusting when I have my own place to offer people.

Hurray for air conditioning and no mosquitos last night! Thanks Chris and Karole!

One of my favorite parts of this trip is actually not the endless hours of paddling every day (though that can be fun, too).  In fact, if I were to rate the things I enjoy in order of enjoyment, it would go something like this:

1. Meeting new people

2. Exploring new cities

3. Paddling

The hard part about cities is finding a place to camp.  We have discovered that even the largest metropoli (is that the plural of metropolis?) have little hidden spots along the river.  In Peoria it was a forested bank along a drainage ditch.  In St. Louis it was floodland behind a catholic school, in Memphis it was the tip of Mud Island.

Here in Vicksburg, well, I won’t say, because we’re still camping there and I don’t want anybody finding us.

But the librarian told me my computer time was up. Sorry. I’ll write more later.

We paddled out of the St. Joseph river and hit the swells in the lake.  It was exhilarating to fight the wind and the waves and to feel the cold spray in my face.  It was also a little scary after the smooth waters of the St. Jo.  We landed on the beach and hung around, drying off and letting the sun soak into us after two straight days of cold and rain.

After a random ultimate frisbee game instigated by the Notre Dame women’s team who happened to be hanging out on the beach, we ate a delicious lunch of cheese and avocado.

I’m pretty tired right now, so I am going to skip to the important facts.  We found out more about what we were into with Lake Michigan.  Bad weather was rolling in, several of the guys had only been kayaking for about 4 days in their whole lives, and we decided that paddling the lake was not the wisest thing.

We called Terry, and he was willing to come pick us up and take us around the lake to Chicago.

Tomorrow we put into the river.