Interesting Read, "Riverman"

[rfrance0718]

Chronicles the travels, up and down most of America's major rivers, by a lone canoeist.  The book is similar to "Into the Wild" as it boroughs deep into the subject's motivations, shortcomings, and psyche. The paddler travels solo, and I find some relativity in that I like to travel alone, albeit, to a point. I love single handing the Oday and I've built a camper best suited for myself, although it works ok for Tami and I together, as well. Sometimes during my travels I do think about homelessness, but I never leave for very long, while his trips go on for months, and he doesn't have someone to go home to. At any rate, I do recommend the book. You cannot view this attachment. 

[rfrance0718]

And speaking of solo trips. There is finally some snow in the Pennsylvania Highlands and up in Michigan. I built the camper with both summer and winter trips  in mind. I've used it for 3 summer trips, with Thistle in tow, so far. Last year I did Thistle Midwinters in the Fla. Panhandle, Thistle Nationals at Flathead Lake Montana, and Thistle Great Lakes at Seneca Lake in New York. These trips are not solo as crew is needed, which works out in warm weather since I have tented extensions for the camper. Those 3 trips totaled about 7500 miles and all went quite well. I keep make little adjustments and improvements as I build experience. A return trip to Thistle Midwinters is already on the calendar for March.

Now I'm starting to take regular solo ski trips. Last week I drove over to Seven Springs in Pa. There was man made snow at the downhill resort but not enough natural snow for cross country. That trip was cut short do to the massive, rainy, East Coast Storm beginning on Tuesday. Nonetheless, it made for a great trial run. I only made the one ski trip last year, to Colorado, but this year I hope to make weekly trips to the closer venues. Now they have lots of natural snow in Michigan and I'm driving up the the Roscommon XC center on Monday. They have miles of trails and when I talked to someone there, he offered that their parking lot is available for overnight stays for free. They are expecting more snow, temps in the teens during the day, and overnight lows in the single digits. Perfect! The xc center is about 5 hours from Columbus and 3 day, 2 night trips work well for me. I'm a very conservative vagabond.You cannot view this attachment.You cannot view this attachment.You cannot view this attachment.You cannot view this attachment.     

[NickScheuer]

Interesting!  I may look for a copy.  The recent sale of the Albin-25 has downsized me to an old fiberglass canoe with a sail rig.  I've joined the Prairie State Canoeists in order to get a crash course in put-ins and take-outs throughout IL, WI, & IA and to take advantage of their group shuttle transport.   

[Norm L.]

Mississippi Solo is another good book on doing the length of the river. I've read another but can't recall the title.

There was a TSBB denizen here for a while who took his family down much of the river in a Nimble 20. He ended up in FL or maybe a bit up the East Coast. He had parts of his trip on line, a blog before there were blogs. It was titled the name of his boat which I recall was a person's name.
Some better old minds may remember him.

[Doug SC]

That looks like some great trout fishing water you are camping next to. I would have both my fly and tenkara rods with me. Your ski poles would work for wading.