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Sign Up for the Creative Soul Juice newsletter and receive my Coloring eBook! Lessons From the Falls - A Story of Rivers Paddled over the Past 30 Years
The river has always been a teacher. From the time I first dipped a paddle in the Rappahannock, to a recent paddle on the Shenandoah, the lessons continue. That old aluminum Grumman taught me a few things about rocks and hydraulics back in the day. When we threw a wee young boy in the boat and flipped it just before the first rapids in Fredericksburg, l learned about that survival instinct that kicks in for a mother protecting her young. I also learned how to use a paddle to avoid a spill. Many teachers, many lessons. I’ve heard some real whoppers from sitting around a campfire with old decrepit liars, cried a more than a few tears when a fellow paddler took his last breath on the James in the rapids at Hollywood. Gained a life long friend at the funeral. The river has its gifts and its payments. Among the best lessons have been scenes that no land lover observes from an overlook on a parkway. Gorges in the glacier fed rivers of Quebec, skinny dipping in nipple freezing wate
