First Time 8-2-14

I took my sister on her first canoe trip today! We did a 5 hour float down the Buffalo River. The weather was perfect and we had tons of fun just being together. We had an adorable little red canoe and the water was up to an excellent floating level. My sis loved her first canoe trip and I thoroughly enjoyed giving her that experience.

We were halfway through our trip when we came across this man, the river man as I have come to refer to him as. He was super friendly and he told us that he had already been on the river for a week. He would be on the river for another week I gathered from where he said he was headed to. He told us about buffalo gnat storms. He told us that he waited out the rain for a couple days under a tarp reading a book. As he floated past us he dipped his water bottle into the river and then brought the bottle right up to his lips, without a moments hesitation. An urge to go all journalist on him was nagging at my mind. I wanted to know what he ate while on the river, what books he reads, what his back story was and everything in between. But I got shy and let it go. What I did get from him though, was the gift of inspiration, a small spark thrown into the kindling of my soul.