Providential whitewater

Each month I'm responsible for an Outdoor page in the newspaper. The week before my last Outdoor page was to run, my story fell through on me.

While I was scrambling to come up with a replacement story, a woman came to the newspaper with some pictures, wondering if we'd be interested. She had pictures of her son and friend whitewater kayaking through the creek in town. They were out when the water was higher from Hurricane Frances.

In the end, I scheduled a time to go out on the Shenandoah River with them to get my own photos and story about whitewater in our area--which is known for its calm waters, not rapids.

I came back with some great photos (only one of which I'll post here), a decent story. Oh, and I was wet. I tried my hand at the kayak pursuit of playboating and got dumped. The only other time I was in a kayak was in Boy Scouts at Lake Hartwell.

When my editor was pleased with the package I put together in the time frame I had, I was able to tell him that it was providential.

The above picture is one of the teens coming up out of the water after rolling his kayak.

Posted by JRC at September 24, 2004 06:55 PM | TrackBack