I suppose I’m a little slow to the game here but after a much needed 2+ hour phone call with my wonderful mama (broken phone leaves little time or possibility for such extended moments of contact) I have some new thoughts on our meander down the river on Saturday. Much like what a lot of other people, namely Terry, said about the experience being akin to a childhood experience, I found that many of the feelings I recognized physically brought me back to certain moments of my youth. My mom and I spent a good chunk of time today wondering about what children a generation from now will be like and how much different the population’s general activity level is now from how it was in her time or before. We figured in how much time people spend in their cars and offices and homes and how appliances lessen the simple physical tasks of laundry and dishwashing and essentially anything that can be made more efficient with a touch of a button.

She was fortunate enough to grow up in an active family that cherished the outdoors- her father ran a summer camp in his time between teaching high school history, and she and her sisters rode and cared for horses throughout their preteen and teen years. In part because of this, and in part because of my birth occurring riggghhhttt before the technological revolution of the youth, she was able to instill in my sister and me a sense of belonging in nature. She nurtured our interests in snakes and snails and stifled our interests in television. I think it is partly because of this that I so appreciate being able to be alone in the nature that I love.

I think that is part of why I was apprehensive about taking on the Delaware in the company of so many people. To my surprise, I was actually most ruffled up about Ian and Katie being there. It felt like we were all going in on this excursion together and that they weren’t a part of it so somehow their presence would lessen the experience. I was excited to do something I have always loved doing but I was nervous about what it would feel like, with these people, in this setting, in this way. To my pleasant surprise, it was much more freeing than I anticipated. In fact, though I definitely spent the majority of my time pulling forward or to the outsides to be able to kind of do my own thing and see things for myself, some of my favorite parts of the journey were when we were all tethered together and drifting. There was something about that that was at once relaxing and engaging, and it was a new perspective on an encounter with nature for me that I would be interested in repeating.

I know at some point, Joe, Erik and I started to imagine what the camping trip will be like. It was once we had left for the second “half” of the excursion and we were at the front of the group where the water was clear and flat save for the occasional ripples and rocks. The reflection of the trees made it all seem so much fuller, and the frequency of visible housing diminished. With the large hills/small mountains in front of us, it was easy to begin to picture what it might be like out there in the Catskills. I think I will again begin to wonder about the size of the group and the number of the people while we are hiking and such, but I am looking forward to what I now expect to be more pleasant surprises.