"Up the Lazy River....."

My conscience (aka sister Theda) is telling me to get back to this blogging business.

I'm discovering not a lot of people take the kind of driving vacation Peggy and I take in May and part of June. But I don't want this "sharing thing" to be a travelogue. You know, "then we went here, and this is what and who we saw?"

I don't plan on giving you almost anything in order? I'm just going to let some impressions pop up "willy nilly."

First? Shooting wildlife [photography] along the way in May and June illicits a revelation. Horoscopes can be of no use to, Oh, I'm guessing 90 percent of the Animal Kingdom.  Why?

Because you're either a Taurus or a Gemini!

"Say there! What's your sign?"

"Oh, you know!"

End of conversation. Its as if all forms of life stuffed ourselves in New York elevators in September?  And then the power went out?

 Look I know all about different gestation periods and "all that jazz." And believe me I know about rabbits. Its just a fun way to let your right brain take over for a while.

When we are in Australia in the early 90's? We get fascinated with "Mail Boats."

It's tough to imagine in the middle of our urbane existence that there are places on the planet where the only access to the outside world is by river boat?

Peggy, Rhonda and I take a day trip on one such boat up the Hawkesbury river near Sydney. Mail boats are actually more than what they say they are. True. They deliver the mail. But they also bring the newspaper, a bottle or two of milk, and probably most important?   Human contact.

So it would be hard to imagine such a thing here in this country? Wrong!

Start in Gold Beach, Oregon. Our eyes light up as we approach a motel six. We pass a sign inviting us to join the mail delivery up the Rogue River.

We make a reservation to a recording before hitting the sack. We are hoping the boat isn't full? Hoping they deliver mail on Sunday? Hoping they don't cancel trips when it's pouring down rain!

Answers at 6 a.m: "Boat not full. Don't deliver mail, but take crazy tourists up river anyway. When it rains the mail boat has a roof."

And in odd juxtaposition, the vehicle conveying the mail up stream to isolated America.  It's a "Jet Boat."

With no mail to deliver? We can likely make this 80 mileround trip in about an hour. But, ah, the rules of the river. Mail boats must slow down to the pace of an upstream rowboat when approaching salmon fisher persons.

My lasting impressions of salmon fisher persons are:

1.  They hide in their cabins if they haven't caught anything.

2.  If they've boated a biggie? They stand astern bouncing the catch up and down begging you to snap a picture.

3.  They are always eating.

Up a river without improved roads? You see herons, bald eagles, river otters, deer, wild turkey?  I have pictures of all of them, but you don't get to see them. Shooting wildlife [photography] from a jet boat in the rain is not very productive.

I do have shots of our midway destination? Agnes, Oregon.

The boat docks and sends up this 30 degree grade path to a resort about a half mile from downtown "Agnes."

In picture two?  At the picnic table? Picture a man of I'm guessing 55?  He is short in stature, maybe 5'7". His arms are lean but well defined.  The sun baked head hair is thin. It curls into thick ruffles as it blends with a full beard.  That sun has carved out character grooves all over his face and hands.

This is a man who has clearly made his way through life by way of the land.

"Howdy!"

"How ya?"

"Good. Live around here!"

"All 55 years of my life."

"Lumberjack?"

"While I could. Got to get creative to make a livin' now. We can't cut down any of these trees no more."

"Is that right?"

"Yep! Oh, they lets us cut up some of the dead stuff for firewood. That's about it anymore."

Oh, my little journalist heart is pumping.  I want this man's story, and I've got to walk a half mile back to the boat in 20 minutes.

So I'm just about to ask something like, "What's a typical day up here......"

All of sudden there is a rattling vibration near my subject.  I'm thinking for a few seconds I'm going to see some endangered snake pop up?

But I'm snapped back into the real world. From the back pocket of my lumberjack?  Mozart's Piano Concerto # 27.

Out comes the cell phone.

"You know I'd love to stay and chat? But I need to take this. Nice talking to you."

He's gone, and I have "miles to go before I sleep."

I didn't even get a chance to ask him his "sign!"  Seemed like a Capricorn to me.