It turned out not to be a good day to paddle, but it was a great day to sightsee and scout out possible future paddle sights along the Middle Fork of the Willamette east of Eugene where there are numerous dams  and resultant reservoirs.

Definitely not any possibilities this time of year.  Low water. Fast water. White water. Windy water.

And some classic Willamette Valley sights:

And a reminder that big-leaf maples have really big leaves:

I love them.

St. Patrick’s Day Parades.  Cinco de Mayo pinatas. St. Francis of Assisi Day blessing of the animals.

Some people like to celebrate the 2nd Monday in October as Columbus Day. Especially Americans of Italian heritage.

At 1880, it’s the day I usually hang out my Choctaw flag.

And I usually leave it out through Thanksgiving. They were here before Columbus or the Pilgrims.

The penultimate day it was across town with Barb to see Kay’s quilt show.  My personal favorite was the one in which she used a number of my family’s old handkerchiefs.

Then, on the very last day, Dave and I went for a beautiful drive through the country to Silverton Reservoir for a lazy paddle.

This is the put-in:

And this is as far up the creek we could paddle this late in the year. The sound of a babbling brook is my favorite sound in all the world.

You can listen to it here.  Try not to notice that I lost my train of thought and rotated my phone mid-clip. I thought I could edit it round right.  Not so much.