A dusk paddle in search of firewood, the canoe now serving double duty as a logging skiff.
Rounding the point I come abreast of our neighborhood family of river otters, all six of them splayed out leisurly on the rocks ten feet to my left. It takes them about one full second to hear the paddle wash, wake up, spot me, register my proximity, realize what I am, and then plow clumsily into the water en masse.
No sooner have they submerged than they are up again, launching immediately into their usual tough-guy routine of hisses, barks and snorts. Why do I always get the feeling that they see themselves as being much larger than they actually are? Paddling away from them (the whole encounter probably lasting under 5 seconds) I can almost hear them saying "Yeah, thats right pal, keep movin, keep movin..."
On my way home, the canoe now filled with knotted pieces of bleached out driftwood, I pass two kayakers of the shiny neon variety. We eye each other suspiciously, they glancing uneasily at my newly collected firewood and archaic mode of travel, I wondering how they can possibly take themselves seriously in those tour de france outfits.