It was a brisk foggy morning. The kind of morning you want to hit snooze and sleep in. When you
pull up to the loading ramp to see John W throwing the Frisbee and Winston making a flawless catch, you know it is going to be a great paddle.
One by one the crew arrived: Linda P, Gail, John & Lois. We were joined by four folks from Pine River Paddlesports Center, who were tremendous assets to our team. Bob, Ed and Mark prepared the boats and gear while Marty shuttled us down and back.
Standing: Ed, Marty, Kurt, Bob, John W, Gail
Kneeling: Lois, John H, Linda
Standing, but not looking at the camera: Winston
One group photo and we launched. We honed our trash spotting skills for the first mile while working on paddling techniques to make the retrieval kind of like docking the space shuttle with a paddle in one hand. Our skills improved rapidly (no pun) and boats were filling up with a myriad of paddling debris, mostly beer cans full of beer.
Lunch time came, not a moment too soon, and we refueled ourselves while watching a piliated woodpecker doing the same. We loaded back into our vessels and resumed our treasure hunt.
Before I knew it, we were at Low Bridge and the journey was over but not before we amassed a canoe full of river trash. One last photo op and we congratulated each other looking forward to the next clean up. WE MADE A DIFFERENCE! Friendships were forged and muscles were strained. But we are the better for it.
Report by Kurt Reinhart; photos by John Heiam
Lois with one of MANY plastic water bottles
She also picked up some "Hot Damn" liqueur
Kurt and Marty watching "Log jammin' Mark" going all out finding trash
Kurt adding to the collection of Croc shoes
Bob was not afraid to get his feet wet to further the cause
Mark Miltner attacks another downed tree in the never-ending search for debris
This was our haul at the take-out, including hunks of old lumber with protruding nails. A job well done by an AWESOME team!