Tuesday, July 5, 2016

Friday Afternoon at the River



We left work an hour early on Friday, a little perk we usually get
before a holiday, which gave me time to stop at the store and 
pick up a picnic dinner before jumping into the boat on the 
only dry day of the long weekend.  


I tucked my hair up in a cap and packed my towel
and some necessities that I might need.  You never
know how wet you might get or how cool the breeze
may be, even if your own backyard is pretty hot.


My husband is the boat driver.
I hate the ride, just hate it, because we travel through
water that is only inches deep and we're going pretty fast to do it.
When the river's deep, I love it.  I can face forward, 
uncover my eyes and enjoy the view!


We traveled light this time, knowing we would be there only
a few hours in the late afternoon when the sun would start
to go behind the hills and shade the beaches.  The water was cold,
too cold to take a swim that day, so we sat on the beach,
opened the cooler and dined on hard salami, crackers,
cheese, fruit and a selection of olives from Dierberg's olive bar.
(a very nice grocery store in St Louis)
There were green ones, giant green ones stuffed with blue cheese,
kalamata olives, feta cheese crumbles, marinated peppers and 
small chunks of hard parmesean, all in wonderful olive oil.


Even though it was a holiday weekend, we had the place to ourselves.
Hardly any boaters were on the river that early.  There were a few
jet skis and a boat here and there but for the most part it was quiet.


After a bit we knew we had to head back so we could
wait our turn to put out.  We could take a slower ride home
and look at all the vines and wildlife, in fact an eagle flew over
with another bird chasing it!  We talked to a guy setting
out jugs for fishing and watched people setting up 
their camping spots on the gravel bars with car access.


It's almost always pretty there, really pretty in the snow
but I have been on the river in snow maybe once or twice before.


We caught the sun at just perfectly to capture the reflection
of the bank on the glassy water.  

The next few days were almost completely rainy, a continuous,
steady rain that we needed.  It must have soaked in well since
we didn't see any flooding but our culvert filled up and that is a 
sure sign that we have had a lot of rain!

I hope your holiday weekend was very nice if you celebrate the 4th of July 
from wherever you are reading.  Sometimes I forget that I work for an 
international company and would return to e-mails from other countries
where they were not off work Monday but take a holiday that corresponds
to their country.  I'm thinking we need to be diverse and celebrate everyone's 
holidays (with a day off work!).  I'll even write a paper on their holiday.
So far the company hasn't taken me up on it!







3 comments:

Gorges Smythe said...

Looks like fun.

Harry Flashman said...

That's a really nice post. I went through it several times, just looking at the pictures and matching them up in my mind with your narrative. You haven't been letting the grass grown under you lately, I'm surprised you are not worn out with all the doings.

Kathy Felsted Usher said...

Harry, you are right. We were talking about that the other day. We go to work, come home and work until just before dark in the yard and gardens but I guess we like it that way. At some point we'll put on some DVDs and have a movie night!