Leif and Natalie

With Natalie out of the country doing geologic mapping for a few months, I found myself without my favorite boating partner for thanksgiving break. I really didn't feel like driving out to the northwest and paddling alone, so I started thumbing through my rolodex. Most of my B list paddling buddies have jobs, so I moved down the list to the C team. At the top of that list was Chase Nobles. I called him up a month or so ahead of time and got the trip all lined up. Pretty close to the departure date, Chase recruited a third paddler for our expedition, young Eddy Honea. I was happy to have a third person to share the gas costs and driving load. The three of us had an excellent trip, but I realized that, like most people, I'm getting old. Those kids were stoked ALL the time. Since I was so excited about the trip, I wanted to leave at the earliest possible moment, and that was right after I finished teaching a lab at 8:00 thursday night. However, I had a busy week, and was