I've waxed lyrical about my trip down Maine's St. Croix River in this space previously, so I'll spare you the deep meaning and purple prose. Just the facts after this, my third trip down the 40-ish mile paddle from Vanceboro to Princeton, ME with the U.S. on one side and New Brunswick, Canada on the other (with a 75+ mile paddle up the Allagash River Waterway thrown in for fun).
We put our canoes in the water in Vanceboro and paddled about five hours to our first campsite at Little Falls. Couple of cool views here, one of the falls, and one of the view from my tent the first morning on the river.
Rolled another five hours or so down to Loon Bay on day two. The river was running on the low side in places, so the eagles and fish heard a good number of creaks and groans - both from our bodies and from the undersides of our canoes scraping the riverbed.
Dealt with some headwinds on day three as we paddled through a wider section of the river, but made it to Turtle Point on the Canadian side without much incident. We did meet one of the locals after we pulled into camp, which was cool.
Just a short four miles across a lake took us to our takeout spot on the final day. Little bit of breeze made it a modest challenge, but the paddle took just over an hour. Caught this sunset at my uncle's brother's compound in Grand Lake Stream - not a bad coda to a serene and timely break from the world.
Just five us on this trip down the river. From left to right, Jason (he's a middle school principal in Massachusetts and my cousin Steve's cousin from a different side of the extended family), Sean (who works on the facilities team at a prep school in Massachusetts and is also a cousin of Steve and Jason's), me (who you know all too well), my cousin Steve (who teaches at a prep school in Connecticut - that's a theme in our family), and my sister's husband Scott (who works for CSX Transportation in Jacksonville). An excellent blend of dudes who enjoy dishing out a good ribbing and can take one in return and who don't shirk the necessary work that accompanies a few days in the wild. I consider myself blessed to have these opportunities.
Posts
29 comments:
Looks pretty fantastic, buddy. Catch any fish? Good to get that out of your system before the Fishing Trip.
Looks like an awesome trip Rob. Kudos for committing to it each year. I have the same question as Whit...you fish at all on this jaunt?
i’m not that strong a fisherman. i don’t fish.
Isn't your uncle's brother's compound your uncle's compound or your father's compound?
Not if it’s an uncle by marriage, Z
John Schneider has been named manager of the Blue Jays. When asked what he’ll be concentrating on, he said, “Straightenin' the curves, flattenin' the hills.” I tell you, beats all you ever saw.
Someday the Yanks may get em’ but O’s never will.
That's pretty manly.
Lovely pics. Welcome back to civilization. Thanks for bringing back some content.
I'll be doing a short trip to Maine at the end of the month. Ditching the car trip home so I can fly back and do OBFT.
Tiger… yikes
all that water and no fishing? you should do some trolling!
i'm rooting bigly against the liv tour douchewickets, because greg norman. but those guys had a pretty good day today.
the other guys on the trip did a bunch of fishing. lots of smallmouth, some chub, even a pickerel. i just don't dig on the pesce. pacifist and all that.
You won’t be eating the tuna at OBFT, right?
let's not get carried away
happy tbt day! and from rucker park.
been running sprints with my 18 y/o as part of the conditioning work she's required to do for college cheer. she's officially faster than me over ~80m.
TR knows all the fast women in Colorado.
More unsuccessful TR bait.
We haven't had someone leave the GTB fold this drastically since... Jerry? Dennis? Or dare I say... Teej?
Teej is busy gallivanting around San Juan. El moose out front shoulda told ya
Teej is celebrating his 10th anniversary which, as he pointed out on his anniversary, is also the 10th anniversary of Greg, Marls and I trying to break into Union Station at about 4 am. Hoping we can drag Marls out to run it back when I’m in DC for Rage/RTJ in a couple weeks.
they've got the hype man on the mic at rucker. phenomenal.
Really fun first TBT game. As much as I love having games at the Rucker, I do think it’s a bit different game playing outdoors and that can skew the results in this regional.
the open has the makings for a very exciting finish tomorrow even for the casual golf fan. major fomo at moment as the winc boys and yours were there just under a year ago. our residence while in town - the famed rusack's hotel on the 18th fairway. was grande on every level and a must repeat.
Apparently today is zanniversary.
who knew?
zmom! This happens every year. zwoman and I forget about zanniversary and zmom calls or comes over to wish us well.
pulling for rory, but he just can't make anything. cam smith, on the other hand, can't miss.
The last 30 minutes of Orlando City-Atlanta FC were fun. And quite spirited. Those teams do not like each other.
Post a Comment