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.We have not been on a river adventure in several years now. In the dimly recalled days before children (recalled dimly because parenthood requires too much focus to ponder the past) we spent a great deal of time on rivers. I know this because there is a drift boat in the garage, and I remember using it. A lot. It is the most recent model of a few we had parked there. The guano covered cataraft we just brought home from the Deschutes river cabin has also been used. Somewhere under the mess is a familiar boat. The bird, bat, mouse, and rat droppings speak of lonely years in a dark garage with a broken window, allowing access to all those feathered and furry creatures who left something behind.
I pulled the cataraft out over Memorial Day, when we were staying at the cabin with friends. Every crevice, each surface, was completely covered. A dehydrated, long dead mouse was caught in the crack where the pontoon meets the wooden deck. A decrepit nylon boat cover, once used for the ski boat, had been brought down and set on the front deck of the cataraft, and became a rodent home. Pieces chewed from it washed off in the spray of the hose long after the visible nests were removed. The only residents of the garage who did not leave nastiness behind atop the boat were the snakes. Fortunately, water pressure was my best friend of the day, washing years of residue from rodent inhabitation into the dry field.
Now this partially cleaned cataraft is in our driveway, and we are pulling out the dry bags and camping gear for our first big river trip with the children. We would have liked to take them sooner, but not everything is possible. Once they were old enough and good enough swimmers to survive a fall from the raft into the rapids, it was more difficult to take them out of school and share rivers with them. Running a dude ranch meant we could not leave town for more than one night in June, July, or August. Finally, our stars have aligned, and I am washing dung from hypalon. And, I am excited to be doing so.
Happy Trails!
Eva
