Tippy canoe and river rats too

The Phactors used to canoe quite a bit, but in the past 15 years not so much largely because we no longer have a river and a canoe.  The two sort of went together.  Today was a pretty nice day  for mid-July here in the great Midwest, hot, but not too hot, pretty weather really, and friends who do have both a canoe (several actually) and a river invited us for a nice leisurely down stream paddle of about 3.5 hrs.  This time of year with the water near the minimum for canoeing you see mostly trees along this undeveloped river except for one blighted encampment with a classic redneck look about it.  What a great change of scenery.  Among the highlights was a bald eagle nest high in a sycamore tree, a grove/clone of paw-paw (quite uncommon here abouts), some muskrats swimming along, and a great blue heron rookery of about 20 nests high in a cottonwood tree over the river.  Although it seemed strange to see no turtles sunning anywhere.  It was great fun.