My last river trip working as a guide was October 2002. The last time I was in a canoe on the water was an overnight on the Colorado River as a guest on a trip the following spring. My first canoe trip with Don Greene's Whitewater Experience was on the Rio Grande Memorial Day weekend May 1991, the 3 day wilderness canoe camping trip through Boquillas Canyon in Big Bend that later became the trip I guided on four times a year.
My second canoe trip was 5 days on the Pecos River in the fall of 1991, also as a guest and I was hooked. Nineteen ninety two was a busy year for us in the studio and so I wasn't able to go on any trips but in '93 I went on the Memorial Day weekend Boquillas Canyon trip again and at the end Charles, one of the guides, asked me, well, Ellen, when are you going to become a guide and with the encouragement of the rest of the guide staff I did. I signed up for a Red Cross first aid and CPR class during the summer and Labor Day weekend I went on the Boquillas trip as a helper. In February '94 I took the Advanced Wilderness First Aid class that Don sponsored every other year and got my guide certification in March and worked three trips that year and it just ballooned after that. Working trips on the Rio Grande (Boquillas Canyon, Lower Canyons, Mariscal Canyon), the Colorado, and Buffalo Bayou day trips in Houston, private trips on the Brazos, the Pecos, the Rio Grande (Boquillas and Santa Elena), the Guadeloupe and the San Marcos in the Hill country. I took lessons and assisted others in giving lessons. I eventually acquired a 16' canoe, a pedestal play boat (an open canoe, rounded on the bottom, with a pedestal that you sit on while kneeling, strapped in across your thighs, the boat becomes part of your body responding to hip movements as well as a paddle), and a kayak.
I'm a little fuzzy about when I first met John, could have been the second trip I took through Boquillas Canyon in '93 if he was on guide staff for that trip or maybe the Labor Day trip, I'm pretty sure it was sometime in '93 though. At any rate he became a very close friend and over the years we worked together most every trip and took private trips with other friends as well as many weekends up in the Hill Country. John helped see me through a very rough time in my marriage when I wasn't sure if Marc and I would make it. He listened to me talk, he provided me with some safe time away doing something I really enjoyed, was never inappropriate, and helped me hone my paddling skills and later when he and Elise were going through a rough patch I was able to return the favor.
At some point Elise joined the guide staff and he and Elise hit it off and eventually married and even later Marc joined. But all good things come to an end. Don's health started to fail, drought conditions were pretty severe in Big Bend and not enough water to float a raft and in some cases a canoe. He stopped doing the open to the public trips, the last trip I did was a 5 day private trip through Boquillas Canyon which may very well have been his last outfitted trip out there. My guide friends scattered; John and Elise moved to Tennessee in 2004, Charles and Renee moved to Rochester NY, Dee moved to Utah, and the rest we just drifted apart though I'm still in touch with Charles and Renee and John and Elise.
John and Elise are both retired and now they RV around the country in their Airstream and were staying the weekend at the RV park on the beach in Matagorda on their way to San Antonio to see their youngest grandchild for the first time and then on to points west so I headed down on Sunday to spend the day with them. I really really enjoyed it. It was...comfortable and really wonderful to see them again.
I know I have a lot of pictures of John and Elise though towards the end I stopped taking cameras on our trips. These are a few pictures that floated to the top via a cursory rummage through some of the pictures I took over the years. None of them do my friends or the places or the experiences justice. And as for the quality, they are pictures of pictures because I'm too lazy to scan them.
John, Boquillas Canyon
Marc, Elise, John on the Pecos
John and Dee, Rio Grande
John and Elise, not sure if this is Boquillas or the Pecos
Marc and I, John and Elise, Dee and Bob putting in for a week long Pecos River trip.
That's a very pretty beach. I'm glad you got to see your friends again after so many years.
ReplyDeleteLooks like alot of fun. I live along the Colorado River in Lake Havasu City. Most of my adventures are both on the river or offroad in the desert. I have lived here since 1978, when I designed and built my own home. wouldn't live anywhere else
ReplyDeleteIt was a lot of fun. Lots of great memories.
DeleteWow... another facet to your fantastic personality! I can absolutely see you doing white water rafting--anyone who climbs a ladder to fix a roof has no fear whatsoever! LOL Gads... I'm not a water person at all -- can't even float, so to do what you did is utterly amazing.
ReplyDeleteNever did the raft trips. Don put on two trips at a time...rafting through Santa Elena Canyon and canoe through Boquillas Canyon. The canoe was my love, me and the river, plenty of whitewater though depending on the river. I did do one whitewater raft trip through Colorado and Utah but I was just a passenger.
DeleteFor pictures of pictures, those look really good! Glad you got a chance to catch up with friends. I'd love to check out the Big Bend area someday. It's long been on my list of places to visit.
ReplyDeleteIt's an incredible place and I was fortunate to be able to spend so much time there at all times of the year.
DeleteFunny that you and I had such deep heartfelt reunions with people we loved so many years ago. On the beach! I know exactly how you feel and I am so glad that you got this chance to be with them again.
ReplyDeleteWe live parallel lives in so many ways.
DeleteYou have lived an exciting life, Ellen! You are able to do so many things that I have never even thought of doing! Good for you!
ReplyDeleteIt just never occurs to me that I can't do something.
DeleteWhat a lovely reunion with dear friends. Your photos of photos look great.
ReplyDeleteYou have an adventurous history. Thanks for sharing it.
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad you got to spend some time with John and Elise. And what a fun thing for you to have done for those years! I would have loved to have gone on one of those back in the day (despite my almost entire lack of outdoorsiness or athleticism). I did take a trip down the Zambezi when I was in Zambia back in the late 1980s, but I was pretty useless.
ReplyDeleteYes, so glad you were able to spend this time with your old friends. It's extra special to have friends like these. You did all this right. Somewhere in my archives, I have a picture of my canoe.
ReplyDeleteGood times, recent and long ago. My favorite photo is the first one of you and John with the ocean in the background. What a glorious sunny day to get together with friends!
ReplyDeleteWonderful memories...that is what photos are for.
ReplyDeleteGreat experiences, and great memories. I don't really want to sail now, but my memories of those years are precious. It was sailing that revealed to me how much more I could do than I'd ever imagined. Besides -- it was fun!
ReplyDeleteI learned to sail at summer camp. Of all the water activities it was the one thing I excelled at and spent a lot of time on a sunfish. My parents bought me one and I spent plenty of time out on Galveston Bay. I don't remember when zI really stopped using it. Somewhere around 17 or 18 I guess. I think my parents sold it later or gave it away, not sure. Somewhere in my early teens my father bought a big sailboat but I think he only kept it for a year or two as no one ever wanted to go out on the boat with him except me. In my memory it had 3 sails but when I did an image search all the boats looked much bigger than the one we had so I could be wrong about that though it definitely had two.
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