2004-04-10 RR DV 2 Deighen returns for a visit

Eighteen canoes met at 9:00AM on the Rum River under a cloudy sky with the temperature in the mid 30’s and some very light snow without any wind.  Just to mention a few of them...  Norm Strike & Al Dubois, Roseanne Barr & Sarah Kueffer, Joe & Ann Manns, Diane Vornbrock & Rick Lorenzen, Chuck Ryan & Tom Gardner, Emily & Bonnie Peterson, Steve Peterson & son, Kevin Shriver & Kate Ellis, John Davies & Jason Larsen, Deighen Blakely & Stephanie Larsen, Keith & Eric Canny, Scott Ankeny's first time out this year in his C1.

Sign for Deighen Blakely read “Welcome Home Deighen” and the next sign a bit further upstream read “RICK LORENZEN … eye chart letters getting smaller and smaller… (very small print) ... If you can read this, you’re in last place.”  Diane and I were exactly in last place and spinning sideways in the current to pull the sign out so I could read the fine print.  I doff my cap to Keith Canny once again.  He confided later that he had put the signs out at 7AM this morning so I wouldn’t have time to find them in advance.  He also took the added precaution of duct taping the bottom of the zip lock bag covering to keep anyone from using the same sign. 

Joe & Ann turned back with Diane and I from the sandbar and we paddled back side by side. We saw a lone kingfisher, a robin, several pairs of ducks, a few pairs of geese, and heard a woodpecker’s knocking on one of the dead trees.  Lots of evidence of  beavers chewing on trees along the shoreline.  There were some very nice houses along the river that we hadn’t noticed on the way upstream.  Joe & Ann sprinted a couple times and actually beat us in the shortest bridge sprint I’ve every participated in, only about 10 strokes from the bridge. 

Diane was learning the fine points of side wake riding.  Both bow and stern paddlers need to work on keeping the canoe parallel with the other canoes.   Using draws and pushes in the bow as necessary to keep the nose pointed just slightly towards the canoe providing the wake.  This helps keep you from left behind if they take off sprinting unexpectedly.  It doesn’t always work, but if you let the canoe stray too far away from their canoe, that’s the time when a more experienced team will take off because it takes a crossbow or strong push to get your canoe back in line and that slows it up a bit.  Every little edge counts with the better teams.