Shaw Girl Happenings

Katie and I had another great adventure! Along with our friends Concetta and Micaela, we planned, packed, paddled, and successfully completed an overnight canoe trip on the mighty Conewango! After a few weeks of sitting around the house, as slugs, while Katie recovered from her tonsillectomy (and, by her choice, in-grown toenail surgery), discovering our long lost canoe muscles, the great outdoors, and primitive camping was a delight!

The old canoe paddled like a charm, even loaded down with all our gear. Astute blog readers will notice that Katie is using an original "Shaw" paddle, that originally belonged to the Thistle of yacht club days.
The Conewango is a slow moving river this time of year. The current was barely discernible. It's mostly flat water, and when the wind was against us, if we stopped paddling we drifted upstream. We stopped at this peninsula, about 6 miles from our start, for a break. Keeping our eyes ever vigilant for wildlife, Concetta spotted the rarely seen, (at least on canoe trips) but always impressive, Holstein cow. The bovine wandered down to the rivers' edge opposite of our peninsula, and was totally unimpressed with our cow calls. Other than the cow, we saw a few heron, but not much else.

We spent the night on an island which has 2 Adirondack style shelters, a broken pit toilet, a fire ring, picnic table, docking area, mosquitoes, and that's it! As soon as we landed and unpacked, we gathered firewood, started a fire, and sat at our table to relax. If you ever want to go primitive camping, you want to bring Micaela with you. "Be prepared" is her motto. She announced "I have nail polish! I have perfume!" So we all painted our nails bright fuchsia pink, to cover up all the dirt we had under our nails, and were welcome to spray on perfume to cover our grubby canoe aroma. We dined on foil dinners, sushi, and wine. Probably a bit too much wine; after dinner I slipped on the river bank and fell in!

The next morning there was a bit of rain, and the day started out gray and cloudy. After our typical camping breakfast of toasted bagels, bacon, and coffee, we packed up and headed out. We paddled around the island, and then headed downstream into Pennsylvania. The sun came out, burning off the cloud cover and revealing another beautiful day. A great blue heron sat on an old log and allowed us to paddle up closely. With our tired muscles protesting, we loaded the canoes on our rooftops, and drove home. We were gone just 25 hours, but it seemed as though we had traveled to another world and back. Maybe, that's just what we did...

Labels: Katie, sports, Sue, vacation