Oostanaula River Paddle Trip

Getting ready

Derek leads the way

Adam enjoys the ride with Aunt Agatha and Uncle Paul

We scrambled up the embankment, on one of our breaks, to see this beautiful farm

Adam shows off some of the mussels he found

The head guide found this stick for Adam along the river bank and informed Adam that the bark had been chewed off by a beaver

Me, Helen, and Derek

You can't see this very well, but Adam loved riding in Uncle Paul's big truck down to the river to load up Paul's canoe after the trip

Adam and Derek show off some nice mussels that one of the other paddlers gave them

Helen's brother, Paul, and his wife, Agatha, invited us to join them on a paddling trip down the Oostanaula River. The trip was sponsored by the Coose River Basin Iniative. Paul and Agatha have their own canoe and have done a number of trips, but this is the first one we've done with them. We don't have our own canoe, but the group provided one for us.

We met Paul and Agatha for lunch at Wendy's in Calhoun before heading to the river, which was a few miles away. It was quite a haul for us eastern suburban residents. The weather was beautiful and we all enjoyed learning about the river, especially the role that mussels play in keeping the river clean. We stopped at various places along the way to look for mussels. Usually, we stopped at these partial dam like structures that were built during the Civil War era in order to divert water and make normally shallow areas deep enough for steamboats to traverse.

After the trip, it took a while to straighten out our backs and then we all went to Pizza Hut for dinner. The boys must not have heard us planning with Paul and Agatha to meet them at the Pizza Hut, because when we pulled into parking lot and Paul and Agatha were there, the boys got so excited that Paul and Agatha had also stopped at Pizza Hut. They rushed out of our van to inform Paul and Agatha of the serendipitous situation.

All in all it was a fun day and I was only mildly disappointed that I missed the big showdown between the Colts and the Patriots.