May 2nd Journal Entry

Good evening, dear. I woke at 4am and could not get back to sleep. The cot in this tepee sags in the wrong places for this body. So I got up passably stiff. Went over to the bathhouse for another shower, my I love hot water! I cook oatmeal for breakfast.
I sanded and glassed the damaged boat until I had to stop for the resin on the tools to harden. The resin gets sticky and hard to work with. But if I let everything harden some more, I can break the resin from the tools and start up again.
At 8am I picked up the double canoe paddle and my not adequate life jacket and walked up the hill to the Wiser Highway. I walked a mile west to the ramp where the two other canoes were waiting. The one already repaired and the one needing repairs were just a bit further from the water. The river was still going down from flood.
I pushed and rocked each boat until they were partially afloat and mostly free of the mud. I loaded the 2 by 4's in the leaking boat and put myself in the other. I started downstream with the leakier tied behind the repaired canoe.
I tried to stay to the left of the main current, but the flood waters had deposited a half mile of sandbars just beneath the surface. I turned around when I could go no further and paddled upstream to my starting point. I turned into the main current and made good speed around the bars.
I discovered that my knees and back could have used more frequent exercise during my wait to be cleared of cancer. Ouch! Paddled away until I rounded the bend heading north in the current. Then I started angling back to the left bank where the water was slower. The sun shown fiercely in my eyes and I could barely see the rock wall off to the right.
Thinking It might already be the rock pillar that rises out of the river from my campsite, I rounded a snag which had settled as the water receded from flood. Maybe that very tree had punched the holes in my boats?
I tied the boats to its roots and then plowed the bow of my boat into the sloping sand and mud bank. I climbed over the front of the boat holding on to its bow tie rope. I slipped and fell right on my butt, making a mess of my skirt.
Anyway, I tied the boats, climbed the bank and walked downstream until I found the campground a half mile further along. I walked back and climbed back into the boat. Pushed off and paddled to where I needed to be. I pulled the boat up the ramp then up onto the grass. I turned them over, bottom up to the sun so the mud could dry.
I went up to the tent, got a clean skirt and a towel and had my second shower of the day. Washed the muddy skirt too. At 11 the boats were dry enough to start work of the leaker. I glassed it and began pinning it with 2 by 4's to the already repaired boat which had been so badly damaged. Kept on glassing the other boat, alternating between the tasks. At 4:30, I stopped for the day read Dean Koontz's "Winter Moon," made dinner. I now write in the tail of the day.
It was a lovely fine day, Daddy.. Bye.