The weather has been great for the past week or so, prompting me to put the kayak in the water on Wednesday night and paddle over to Prater Flats. I was out for about 2 1/2 hours. It was a great wildlife night. Lots of blue heron, kingfishers, osprey and lunker fish roiling the shallow waters of the flats. I also paddled past a massive barge as it lumbered upstream toward Knoxville. I’m thinking about paddling Tennessee River Gorge near Chattanooga soon if the weather doesn’t return to sweltering. Let me know if you want to join me …

Deliverance is one of the few movies I’ve seen that rivals the intensity of the book, though I still vastly prefer the novel. Might be because Dickey wrote the screenplay for the movie. I remember talking to Dickey about the music in Deliverance. At the time, he was having major health problems, and we talked about his stubborn insistence on not going “gentle into that good night,” which now seems odd given his dislike of Dylan Thomas. I’m also a major fan of his poetry.

Do yourself a favor. Pick up a copy of Deliverance and re-read it. Or discover it new. And then pick up a copy of Buckdancer’s Choice to sample his poetry. Despite his many flaws, Dickey was a literary giant in my eyes.

jim_tom_quaich.jpg

Originally uploaded by Suffering the Benz

Tom sips Scotch from a quaich while he, Jim (right) and Jenny regale us with tales from their recent trip to Scotland.

I’ve always been fascinated by Scotland and it’s high on my list of places to see. Apparently, Tom and Co. got to spent time with Phil Cunningham while they were there. Tom and Phil are buddies from way back. Phil’s an incredible musician, so we listened to his music while looking at photos of the trip and dining on a perfectly cooked pork loin.

Another great evening with great friends …

Big dog. Big heart.

I woke up early today and drove down to Concord Cove Park since I still had my kayak on the truck from the Fontana paddles earlier this week. Concord Cove is about a 12 mile roundtrip paddle from the house, which pretty much is as far as I can go in one push, so putting in there gave me the ability to start exploring some new stretches of Loudon.

But instead of heading out onto Loudon I paddled past the Concord Yacht Club and into Sinking Creek. I spent a few hours exploring there, cruising past the Concord and Fox Road marinas and up into the farthest reaches of the creek. At one point, I had to wait for a river otter to swim under the Emory Church Road Bridge before I could enter, ducking my head to avoid scraping it as I paddled through. The area up past the bridge is awesome. Very remote feel despite how much it’s in the middle of everything. In addition to the otter, the highlight of the trip was watching an osprey chase off a Canada goose. Not sure what the goose did to earn the Osprey’s wrath, but it was pretty fun to watch.

Total paddle was almost 12 miles roundtrip. More photos. I’m thinking I’ll leave the kayak up in the garage for a while to encourage me to explore more sections of Loudon and its associated tributaries …

I screwed up my back a few months ago and have been getting in the kayak sparingly. This week, I finally felt good enough to jump in the boat again. It helped that my buddy Jim had the week off and wanted to head up the Fontana Lake in the Smokey Mountains to paddle. It’s one of my favorite spots and I was thrilled to go back.

We drove up on Monday in a rainstorm and things weren’t looking good, but after we arrived at Fontana the weather eased and we decided to put in at Fontana Village Marina. From there, we headed up Eagle Creek amid dramatic skies and a bunch of kids in canoes. It was a nice, though tiring, paddle. All told, we went about 9 miles.

After a hard rain Tuesday night, we awoke to cloudy skies and headed up to Cable Cove and put in there. I love this put in. It’s remote, and it puts you in the heart of Fontana. We were out for a few hours and covered about five miles. I saw one canoe and a couple power boats the entire time. And the Smokey Mountains made it very clear how they got their name. The clouds and mist rising up out of the trees were amazing.

Thanks to Hank Stuever and his marvelous book “Tinsel,” Lara and I had an inverse NPR moment recently. Our friend Barb loaned us an audio copy of Hank’s book, which we spent much of a 16-hour roundtrip drive to Pittsburgh listening to.

As we hit Abingdon, VA, I started wondering if we had enough book left to last the rest of the drive home. When we entered Knoxville, I started worrying that we wouldn’t have enough time to finish it and we’d be sitting in the driveway, waiting for it to end.

But as we pulled in our driveway, the last line of the book was read. It had lasted exactly long enough to get us home. Lara and I looked at each other, grinned and thanked Hank for a delightful drive.

If you haven’t read “Tinsel,” add it to your “must read” list. Wonderful book. Hank’s observational tale is perfect for this examination of Christmas and what it means to us, as seen through the folks in the Dallas exurb of Frisco, Texas. Some of it’s pretty strange, but Hank doesn’t judge. He just observes and lets the people speak for themselves. It’s clear that he developed a true affinity for many of the book’s subjects, and it’s uncanny how the holiday events offer a macroeconomic tale of a society consumed with debt, spending and materialism. But the Christmas spirit is in there, too. Buy a bunch of them and give them as gifts next Christmas.