Go Slough
Published September 29, 2009 | 
So deep, so wide, will you take me on your back for a ride
If I should fall, would you swallow me deep inside
– gabriel
In yesterday’s post I mentioned stopping along the roadside to wrangle some apples only to end up cleaning up a bunch of trash. The photo above is from that very spot. What looks like a swamp in the image is part of a vast network of small streams, bogs and sloughs that make up the lower Wisconsin River valley. Somewhere out there past the swamp is the river proper.
The Alien & The Wandering Tome
Published September 28, 2009 | 
I HAVE been in a multitude of shapes,
Before I assumed a consistent form.
I have been a sword, narrow, variegated,
I will believe when it is apparent.
I have been a tear in the air,
I have been the dullest of stars.
I have been a word among letters,
I have been a book in the origin…
- the battle of the trees, book of taliesin
Just a few words seem to tie all my recent and approaching days together. Each sub-set of ideas fly around them like ribbons around a single maypole. The holiday adorned children dancing beyond I fear, represent a sanity long gone. Skipping backwards through their common cloud to the foundation left apart, the words I read have little in common; Wisconsin, Scotland, Muir, monster, architect, Wales & fudge. Yet they keep coming up. Together they become one… Continue reading
Posted in My Weird Life, Paddling, Quixotica, Random Thoughts, travel | 
gordon brown, spring green, wisconsin, wisconsin riverlooking down possibilities
Published September 21, 2009 | 
I just heard that whistle blow. Gonna go down the river once more.
Well, I’ve got my bag and I’m ready to go. Gonna go down the river once more.
- Kinston Trio
The lower Wisconsin was a canoe trip that almost made Justine Curgenven‘s up-coming DVD. It’s certainly a legendary paddle trip around here. As I stood on this ridge looking down into the valley I suddenly wondered how I could fit it in myself before the snow flies. Kayaking the Wisconsin probably doesn’t quite live up to Wisconsin’s “Canoeing Heritage” Meme but still…
Same River, Different Landing
Published September 20, 2009 | 
Kayaker With Ferry Bluff in the Background
I had arrived quite early, so I waited. I unloaded my kayak beside the water and chatted with a couple from the Kenosha are who had chosen this unlikely boat landing for a spot of early morning fishing. The weren’t catching anything. As I carried more gear down to the boat, I checked my watch. It was already five minutes to 9 and still no one had shown up. Not surprising really, people tended to race in at the last second for these trips. Out of habit I glanced at my phone. There was 1 message.
Love is like a Rock
Published September 18, 2009 | 
You can’t depend on your teacher
You can’t depend on your preacher
You can’t depend on politicians
You can’t depend on superstitions
– donnie iris
So tomorrow I hop back in my kayak to paddle the Upper Dells of the Wisconsin River along with a group from Rutabaga. Well, that is if the new Jeep starts. It seems to be having one of those battery/alternator/starter issues that simply leave you confused and going nowhere fast. Story of my life! Right now it’s at the mechanics. She’ll hook up the computer and like roulette wheel on a Mississippi River Boat Casino, it will tell me which of the 3 options I’ve selected to experience. It can’t be the battery as I’ve already made that purchase. However if my little wheel of misfortune does happen to land on “Battery”, it will be met with a long list of expletives loosely translated as, “Spin Again!”…
Posted in Enviroment, Events & Symposia, Paddling, travel, Web Stuff | great lakes, wisconsin, wisconsin dells, wisconsin riverthe inside
Published September 16, 2009 | 
Looking out over Prairie du Chien, The Wisconsin, The Mississippi & Iowa in the distance from the bluffs of Wyalusing State Park.
Sea kayakers know that Wisconsin has miles and miles of coastline boarding two inland seas, Lake Superior to the north and Lake Michigan to the east. The state’s western border is cut by the famous workhorse, the Mississippi river which flows from Lake Itasca in Minnesota, south to the Gulf of Mexico. The Wisconsin River flows diagonally across the state some 430 miles to join the Mississippi near a small town built in the Mississippi flood plain called Prairie Du Chien. (The Prairie of “Dog” but that’s another story).
Posted in Paddling, travel | mississippi river, prairie du chien, wisconsin, wisconsin dells, wisconsin river
The news that truely shocks / is the empty, empty page
While the final rattle rocks / Its empty, empty cage…
And I can’t handle this / I grieve…
– gabriel
Newspapers, according to Michael Moore stopped speaking to their readers long ago and instead began speaking to their advertisers. Well, that’s obvious. When you work so hard to create a population of illiterate “consumers” it’s hardly worth trying to open their minds to anything other than the advantages of Oxi-Clean & Bud-Light Groolers.. Of course newspapers should have known they lost the Grooler buyers years ago. For them, morphing into content speaking to the LCD (lowest common denominator) audience was something akin to taking cyanide when you realized your parachute won’t open. It just hastened the end.
Continue reading →