Red River - Oct 06

We decided to go somewhere different Sunday afternoon. Don suggested Red River, and so that is where we went. We put in at the Stoner Street Launch and went towards downtown.


The channel is pretty wide, but there were huge boats out there...all kinds...speedboats, fishing boats, big cabin cruisers, skeedoos...and we were the little fish. Lots of nice big waves gave us a nice ride! :-) I swear many of them were going 80 miles an hour. The skeedoos really scared me. They were going so fast and bouncing over the waves so high, I was afraid that they were going to come off the little things. This guy seemed like he was enjoying himself riding around at top speed all by himself. Although, at least he slowed down as he went past us...mighty nice of him...


The river itself is a lot cleaner than it used to be. It is not blood red like it was when I was growing up. All of the locks and dams that they have put in have helped to slow the erosion of the soil, so now it is just a dirty brown instead of that brilliant red.


The sides of the river were filled with egrets although most flew away when any boat drove by. We came upon one that just was not going to move. It sat there and I was able to get a fairly close picture of it and when we came back down the river it was still there. Kinda strange behavior considering all of the others flew away before we were 100 ft from them.


As we passed all of the Casios we could smell the cigarette smoke that they vent out. It really stunk!


I wish that I could have gotten closer to the boat's paddlewheel, but they had signs and ropes making folks stay away. So, I only got one picture that I liked of the wheel.


To get the paddlewheels up the river to downtown Shreveport, they had to go under the old railway bridges. So they had to repair the rotating bridge span to move the track out of the way to get the boats in their docks. I have always liked rusty things...so I took a picture of the wheels that turn the track.



We made it to the I20 bridge and then decided to head on back. After we got past the old train bridge, I looked up and a red tailed hawk was circling above me. He sure was eyeing me... I guess I was messing up his afternoon fishing run.




It is probably pretty easy for the birds to catch fish on the river because they were jumping out of the river all over the place doing flips in front and behind us.

Well, I guess that was it for this paddle. We had a good time. I think if we go on the Red again, we may go out of Coushatta...maybe there wouldn't be so many big boats. And for all of you who want to see how I look now I've lost 47 lbs, I uploaded a new profile picture...as seen below.

Only one month to go before we get to go down to see my brother Jim and his wife Ann...we are really looking forward to it.

I don't know where we will go next weekend to paddle. In two weeks, I head up to Lake Greeson for a weekend of camping and paddling. I wanted to try paddling it as it is a nice clear lake and not very far away. Two weeks after that I head to Lake Catherine...on of my favorite places to camp in autumn. I figured I had better get in lots of camping this month since November is Miami time!

Well until next time... Happy kayaking!
Cathy