Back to the Chatt

We spent most of the day Sunday recovering from having participated Saturday in the "Back to the Chattahoochee" river race, a fundraising event for Atlanta's main urban river. Unlike cities like San Antonio or Chattanooga, Atlanta wasn't built up around its river but rather a rail line so the Chattahoochee isn't really a major part of our city's identity, but it's the closest one we've got so we make the most of it.

The race attracted hundreds and hundreds of people, maybe more, and that kind of illustrates the challenge for the river. It's nice that there are so many people who want to support river ecology, but the fact that there are a gazillion people in Atlanta who want to use it also makes it hard not to trash it. We hadn't paddled this particular section yet, but I was pleasantly surprised at how it looked.

Unfortunately, the drought is still bad around here and the river was really low. It was kind of amusing to see all the kayaks and canoes lined up to go over some shoals and all getting stuck on the barely submerged rocks. If the paddle maneuver required of us all in that situation isn't called "The Chattahoochee Scootchie," it certainly should be.

Since this stretch of the river is just outside the city it's kind of built up, but in a somewhat haphazard way in places. Most of the riverfront homes are obviously very nice and expensive, but sometimes you'll pass one of those and on the next lot find a broken down picnic table with a rusty propane heater and a homemade pontoon boat with a Confederate flag. The whole scene kind of looks like cross between the Disney Jungle Cruise and Deliverance.

Sadly, we didn't win the "race" even though our time would have been good enough for Leslie to get an award if she'd entered in some other categories. And I could have won too, if only all those other guys hadn't gone so much faster.

I'd show you some pictures of the river and the race and all that, but the camera's memory card went kaput somehow afterwards. So instead, here's an entirely irrelevant picture of Kaylee the next day, when we were relaxing our aching paddling muscles at the lake.