Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Circus on Charles

Last Saturday was an absolutely brilliant, stellar, shining, summer day. I brewed some Belgian in the morning, got some brake work done on the car (long story), and then met friends to go kayaking on the Charles in Newton. When I arrived in the Norumbega Road parking lot, looking for somewhere to put in and/or my friends, I caught a glimpse of fat people taking pictures of each other feeding Cheetos to Canada Geese.

I headed to the other end of the parking lot and pushed my way to the river past hordes of ducks and geese who wanted to be fed. "Have you no shame?" I asked. No response. Put in and it was beautiful on the river but I've never seen so many kayaks in my life. Actually, in 10 minutes I saw more kayaks than I'd ever seen in my life, they were that thick. Two-seaters rolled by with couples, one of whom had obviously said to the other at some point that day, "Fine, but *I'm* not paddling." Four-seaters were the real hazard ... those people had no idea of what to do or control over what they hit.

Met up with my friends down half-way to the Waltham Dam and had some nice talks with riparian land-owners, then headed back South under the highway and had an excellent paddle. There were beautiful, luxurious wildflowers on the banks and as I say, it was an incredible day to be outside.

On Sunday Dave and I went paddling in the Upper Mystic Lake in the afternoon and had another wonderful time. It was a bit more humid and threatening to thunderstorm, but the Upper Lake was in full form with recreators all over it. We had fun.

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