Friday Nite Check In

 

That's my old running partner..., John "Savage" Thompson in his raft on the North Fork of the Clearwater River with another old friend..., Dave McIntosh.  They are both gone now..., and I am too damn old to be doing any river running now days.  But I can still have the fantasies of me and The Savage running the Grand Canyon in his raft.  He had already soloed the Middle Fork of The Salmon..., Idaho's famous River of No Return..., without me.  I was cutting timber in Alaska at the time and couldn't make that run.  That was another fantasy of mine..., but the Grand Canyon fantasy  came back big and strong the other day.

Most of the writers that I follow are now on Substack..., and I had resisted signing on to that website..., thinking that it was just an avenue for them to suck a few bucks out of you by becoming a "Paid Subscriber".  Since I could read them for free and most of them sent out emails where I read their stuff there without going to the Substack site I didn't see the need to go to the Substack website.  But I finally got hooked up there and it turned me on to a new writer..., Brooks Wheelan.  The first piece I read was his pick of the top ten national parks with tips on getting the most out of the experience.  I liked his style and had been to most of them..., and live right next to one of them..., Olympic.  When I got out of the Army I hit Zion, Grand Canyon, and Yosemite on my way home..  Later in life I hit Glacier..., and I still regret not getting to the Tetons when I lived in Idaho.  After checking out the piece on the parks I found the piece he wrote that inspired this FNCI..., How to Run the Grand Canyon Without a Guide.  It filled in a lot holes in my fantasy..., and I am now one of his "subscribers"..., though still a "free one" at this time 😀

Since we are discussing American Rivers..., your Friday Nite Music Video is none other than Tom Russell's "American Rivers"...,