paddle faster, I hear banjo music

Thursday's rain.....hmmm.....I've been watching the USGS river gauge at Oakwood every 5 minutes for the last 32 hours (not really)...and it's rising of course.  The rain wasn't a downpour, but it was certainly enough....you can see the spike rising in the last 12-16 hours.

What I'd like to see by tomorrow morning is a stage at 2.5 feet or less.   You can run the Middle Fork at a stage of 3.0 feet, but it would be a very quick trip.  Joan and I ran the river when it was around 4.0 many years ago, and it was like a freeway.  Way too fast and turbulent to be safe.

So...we haven't heard any takers for tomorrow's trip, but that's ok!...Abby and I (and another dad-to-be friend) are likely going to make the run tomorrow morning with our own canoe.  Because of the Illinois marathon, we are going to leave town by 7:30 or so to be safe.  We could actually leave town as late as precisely 8:11 AM (knowing that only because of this awesome online Marathon viewer ), but we want to play it safe.

We'll be arriving at the Sportsman Lake canoe access parking lot by about 8:30 in Kickapoo State Park.  We'll run the rapids of the Class I stream (not really rapids) and pull the boat out just before the bridge (likely around 10:00) at Kickapoo Adventures (formerly Kickapoo Landing).

If you decide that you'd like to join, or run the stream some other time, Kickapoo Adventures is open on Saturdays and Sundays only in April, from 8-6.  However, in May, they will be open every day!  So tomorrow, if you'd like to go, and you don't have a canoe, you can stop by Kickapoo Adventures by 8:00 or so, and they can likely set you up with the same trip that we are doing.   For future reference, the map below shows public access canoe launch/pull-out locations along the Middle Fork.  It's Illinois' only national scenic river......so get out there someday and paddle it!  It's pretty!