One More Time
My mother’s old Volvo wheezed over the meandering roads of the Carolina Appalachians, a plume of blue oil-filled smoke trailing behind. The car protested as I pressed my foot deeper into the accelerator. Outside the cramped passenger cabin, the earliest hints of a new season were beginning to poke out of hibernation into the cool mountain air. The sky was crisp clean blue, void of any clouds. The air inside the car was a unique odor of damp neoprene, and the strawberry Twizzlers Mom believes to be mandatory road trip fare. Although we left my childhood residence some two hours ago, I was just starting to feel like I was getting close to home. Every twist of the road I rolled the car through, we got closer to the beginning of our grand adventure.
Slowing the car, I peeled off into a graveled parking lot deep in the New River valley. I could feel an impregnable grin growing on my face as the river came into view. There was nary a soul to be seen at the outfitters store, but we did not come as customers on this morning. I set myself to work unstrapping the crayola kayaks from the roof. I had done this countless times in the past, but this time was something special. Once each of the boats were on the ground, I started spreading equipment between the two small kayaks. I made it appear that I divided the gear evenly, but I took more of a load because I was more experienced than my mother in piloting these small craft.
Originally, I conceived this idea as a solo expedition. However, my mother, attempting to seem as concerned as any other mother deemed that out of the question; so she would have to come with me. Her decision to come was a selfish one, but I knew that. This was the last chance we would have to go on an adventure together for a while, as I was months away from graduating high school, and leaving home.
After hastily lashing the dry bags to the kayaks, we put the boats into the water and climbed in before pushing away from the soggy bank. We were off, just mom and I for two days down the river. The frosty water running down the paddle to my hands was a cold reminder of the consequences of an accident this time of year. Fortunately, in the next seventy miles of river there was only one set of rapids of any serious concern.
We spent the morning suspended in the meanders of the New River as it flows back and forth across the Virginia and North Carolina lines. The water level was low and there were a many rocks reaching up from the shallows, doing their best to impede our way down the river. This early in the season, we were the only people floating down the river, and there were just a smattering of people doing anything at all on the river banks. We found better company in the two does that came down to the river side for a drink than any people. Where the river lies, deep between ancient mountains, the sun graced us with its warmth just briefly as it rose at ten in the morning, and set hardly two hours later.
After paddling almost thirty miles, the map showed we were approaching the place where we would camp for the night. The campground was private, complete with RV trailers converted into luxurious semi-permeant fixtures. Coming to the dock along the bank, two older women bounced up through the grass in an old golf cart, “hey, y’all! welcome!” exclaimed the woman driving in a thick mountain accent. We paid the nightly fee and she pointed us to her best tent site near the edge of the property. We wasted no time in pulling out food and building a small fire to warm ourselves. Camp fires in combination with a day on the river have a way of collapsing all sorts of time and distance. It was not long before Mom and I were caught in thick conversation. The light from the fire danced on our faces as the last rays of the sun waved goodnight. We followed shortly thereafter.
Sometime in the night I woke with a stir because there was a flashlight standing over my hammock! As I ripped apart the top of my hammock, I was mesmerized by the iridescent glow of the moon shining above. It was bright enough I could see deer chasing each other in the field well across the river. I tucked myself back down into my sleeping bag knowing the man in the moon would keep a close watch over Mom and I both. He always would.
