Trip Reports

Thursday August 8^th a group of 9 people left in 8 boats to clean up the Pine River.  It was my first time on the Pine and I had a blast; it is such a beautiful river and we had a perfect day for paddling!  When we first set out, the amount of trash was scarce.  After a while, however, we started finding a lot of things!  I had a great time watching people maneuver through log jams, and it always felt like such a gift when any of us found a water bottle, beer can, or piece of plastic.  Sue definitely found the most interesting and coolest item: a wallet with ID, credit cards, veteran cards, and $91 cash!  We tried to contact the owner during lunch but had no cell service at that spot on the river.  (Editor's note: Sue spoke to the owner that night and is returning the entire thing; it had been in the river about a month).

 

After lunch, I found a child’s purple Croc, and when we stopped to meet up, we found out that Tracie had also found a purple Croc.  The two shoes ended up being a pair in near perfect condition!  At the same stop, a wedge flip flop with gold straps was being shown, and then someone pulled out the other shoe to make another pair!  Lois said that it was a miracle paddle trip because we found a wallet and TWO pairs of shoes.  I was also amazed by the beautiful mergansers that we ran into throughout the trip.

 

Throughout the second half of the trip we came across a group of kids from a local Christian summer camp. They had rented about four rafts and each was filled with about six people. Some of them were struggling with the paddling when we first saw them, but toward the end of the trip they seemed to be doing very well.  Because we were doing a clean-up, we took turns passing each other which gave us time to chit chat.  When we reached the end of our trip, the kids ended up carrying all of our boats and trash back up to the area where our cars were parked.  They were so full of energy and willingness to help, which saved us a lot of time and energy.  The group ended up collecting six large bags of trash as well as two very worn paddles!  It was a very fun trip with perfect weather and lots of laughs. I cannot wait to go on my next clean up!