The last day on the river featured mostly more of the same. PJ drove to Surry to leave some things for her sister while I lounged around camp. Went for a 3.6 mile paddle mid morning on the glassy waters of the Kennebec. Saw another eagle and some deer in the dense foilage along the river banks. Beautiful warm summer day.

People have sometimes asked me about favorite books. I’m almost embarrassed to tell them that mine is a supposed children’s book from the 1800s. I think Samuel Clemens had some of the most insightful commentaries on our society at large delivered with a smart dose of irony. I first read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in fifth grade and read it many times since. At the time, a little too young to grasp the racial implications he was highlighting, the thing that fascinated me most was hopping on a raft and drifting off into the unknown. As a boy, I often wondered what was out there. My parents were nomadic moving from Denmark and Montana to California and Oregon. I must have caught the virus from them.

From our new surroundings in Southern California, we’d load up the old Rambler every summer and drive up to Montana to visit with Pop’s extended family and mom’s uncle in the Pacific northwest. Always finding different routes and stopping to see new things. I’ve been hooked since, always curious about what awaits me around the next bend. Paddling the river this sunny morning and sliding between wooded islands and seeing bushy places along the banks where one could hide a raft for the day had me going back in time to those mornings where I’d stand on the freeway overpass watching the cars go past below wondering where they could all be off to. An empty river, sun on my face, freedom.

PJ got back in the late afternoon and we finished the day roasting hot dogs over the fire on some definitely inadequate for the task marshmallow sticks. A bit flaccid but they got the dogs cooked. Tofu for P and Nathan’s for me. Nice finish to a wonderful stay in southern Maine.