We had planned to go floating with Carla on Saturday, but nothing went according to plan. So when Patrick finished mowing the lawn yesterday and I noticed that paddle-hungry glint in his eye, we threw the lifejackets into the spaceship and set out for Waston's Bend.
Milla cooed and commented on every fish that passed us by as we paddled.
But Vanilla refused to get out of the van, so we called Gary and told him that Vanilla decided he wanted some father-son time paddling the creek today. Poor Ratpaw was planning to sit, relax, and make an egg salad. Instead, he climbed into the van to accompany us on our adventure.
We got out at Watson's Bend and loaded up two canoes for a paddle down to Roman Nose swimming hole. The entire crew got out to wade, waddle, dip, swim, and splash in the stream.
Max cleans out his shoes while Vanilla and Ratpaw get a sense of the stream.
The deeper segment of Roman Nose makes a perfect swimming hole complete with jumping rocks from which Patrick did not hesitate to cannonball.
An inventory of what we found or saw on our brief paddle and romp:
Hundreds of tiny black tadpoles scurrying across the pebbles in the shallow water
Human critters swimming and sauntering
More sediment on the creek bottom than last weekend plus small human critters throwing stones
A handsome frog surveying the rocks near the Roman Nose swimming hole
A daddy and daughter in the deep portion of the swimming hole while white-skinned folks of all shapes and sizes considered the scenario from the banks.
One very large fish that looked about a foot long (Patrick thought it was a trout) but whisked by too quickly for me to drop a paddle and take a photo.
Dozens of minnows with yellow and black stripes around the lower trunk which consistently led to cries of "Fish, fish!" and "Fosh, fosh!" from the little ones, depending on which little one was doing the exclaiming.
If you haven't signed the petition asking our legislators to reconsider running the Eastern Bypass through our local paddleworthy creek, please do so now. Since it is a federal project, federal tax dollars will be applied, which means that all Americans are involved in funding this fossil project which will destroy our creek.
