A River Runs Mild

With the cooler temperatures and clear blue skies, it's a perfect time to be on the water. We are fortunate enough to live just a few miles from both the Potomac and the Monocacy rivers. During the week six of us women loaded kayaks and paddled upstream on the Potomac from Point of Rocks. I call our outing the K & K Klub (knitting & kayaking). We decided to eat on a large rock in the middle of the river, with enough room for all of us and our kayaks. Bringing out our lunches that we had brought with us, we munched and said how lucky we were to be on a rock in the middle of a river on a beautiful, crisp day.


It's days like this that you just want to spend every minute outdoors, soaking up all the goodness it has to offer.


After lunch I took out my knitting and got a few rounds done on a hat I was making out of my handspun.


Since we paddled upstream, we got to just float back downstream, a much faster trip.


Then a couple days later, we gathered for our monthly full moon canoe and kayak adventure. The September full moon is called Harvest, Nut, Mulberry, Barley, or my favorite one, Moon When the Calves Grow Hair. This was our first full moon paddle of the year as the water was either too high or too many people away. This was just the perfect evening for it though, cool, clear, with the moon making its debut over the trees an ohhh-ahhhh affair. Thirty of us gathered on the boat launch at the Monocacy Aqueduct, putting in about 26 boats. Most of us got on the water around 7:00, made our way about 1/2 mile to our party island. Someone turned over a canoe on shore and we spread out our 'food court' over the length of the canoe. Some folks walked around offering their goodies up like at a fancy cocktail party, except without the dress up clothes. The stragglers came to shore when the sun had set and the moon was up. I wasn't paying too close attention but there was a blur of activity and before long a fire was raging in a massive steel cauldron. The 'Cowboy Cauldron' (as we later learned it is called) is suspended from a thick chain that is supported by a metal pipe tripod. Remember, all this was brought over in a canoe! Woah buddy! or should I say, "Yippee yi yo kayaaa!"


One by one we left the comfort of the small bonfire that Ben (thanks Ben) had built and made our way over to see the spectacle of the Cowboy Cauldron. The cauldron would be impressive at a football tailgate party but it was UBER remarkable having paddled it over in a canoe. So when the fire died down a bit, Dennis, the proud owner of the CC, brought out a foldable grill that he placed on the top and threw a couple racks of ribs on to bar-b-que! I don't eat ribs but was impressed nonetheless and I heard "mmmmmmmmmm" from the group.
After about 3 hours of this, we loaded up and said good-bye to our rocky party beach, slowly drifting back under the light of the full moon. Lucky us, to have such a great community spirit that brings us all together on the water and to have so many boats to carry us up river. Thanks, Dick, for organizing this and I hope we can do this again under the October moon.