Welcome to "the engines of my love," a regular review
of why I love you, Martha Ellyn Sharp Nelson, and no
other woman.
I love you and wish you could have been with us our second night on
the river. We camped in Black Canyon, downriver of the rapids. The
rapids really were a lot of fun. Forty foot wavelengths with twenty-five
foot crests almost stood our thirty-seven foot raft on end. We all held
on for dear life. Roice and Rob in the front row, Sarah and Ben behind,
and me in back of Ben. There was one other person on the front row,
one other on the second row, one other next to me, and the other four
members of our trip were in back against the big tube. The three crew
were in back of them. We all had life jackets on. No one was thrown
out of the boat until we stopped at a place with some natural arches
and one of the guides threw one of the other guides in the river.
Everyone in our family except me went swimming. I am getting old.
When they pulled into Black Canyon it didn't seem anything special.
However, as we were getting the bags off the boat to set up camp, three
big horn sheep, a Mom, a Dad, and a baby, came out of the bushes on the
other side and looked at us. I could not believe these sheep were there.
The cliffs were probably 1,000 feet high, and there was this little sand
bank with a few willows, where they were living. They must have got
there before the high water. When I described the trip to Merrill
Littlewood he said the river was 3 1/2 times faster than when he went
down with his son last July.
After we got camp basically set up, they took us up the river for
a hike. It was one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen in
my life. It is common for beach sands to turn into sand dunes, and
then for the sand dunes to be covered when the sea level rapidly rises
because of polar ice melting. This is called a Maximum Flooding
Surface. Above this surface are relatively deep water shales, which
are separated by a layer with lots of fossils. The stream coming down
Black Canyon went along these sand dunes and formed pools and ponds
and beautiful waterfalls. It was beyond breath taking. I had twisted
my ankle on a run a week earlier, and so rather than walking up to the
largest waterfall I just sat there and enjoyed it. I spent my time
looking for fossils and thinking about you. When I first caught up with
everyone, I said to Roice `This is not an accident!' He understood what
I meant. When Sarah passed me and stopped to talk I said `I wish Marti
was here to see this!' She just left. I looked for fossils, tried to
unravel the geology of the chert nodules, and listened to my breathing.
It was wonderful. It was wonderful to have you there filling up my
thoughts. I am glad I will always have you in my mind.
The kids said Roice did a 20 foot back flip into the lake beneath
the waterfall. I'm glad I wasn't there. I guess he will send us
pictures of his adventure. However, there was one adventure photographs
could not do justice to. It was `toe fishing' after a wonderful steak
and chicken dinner. Rob had become good friends with one of the guides,
whose name was Brad. Brad talked Rob into going `toe fishing' with him
after dinner. I had never seen anything like this before in my life.
They took pieces of steak and stuck it between their toes and stuck their
foot in the river waiting for the fish to come and nibble on them. Their
facial reactions were absolutely and totally hilarious. They would try
to keep their foot in the river, but when the fish came and nibbled on
their toe they could not leave it in the river. As hard as they would
try, they could not leave their foot in the river. Rob didn't have very
good hits. However, Roice did it, and it was absolutely wonderful
watching him wiggle and try to keep his foot in the water. I went to
sleep imagining the day when you and I will go toe fishing together.
Why? Because I love you.
I'm interested in sharing why I love you. I know how important
the written word is to you, and if you ever feel neglected,
ignored, or unloved, and would like an up-to-date bound copy of
these lovelets or any subset of these lovelets for any purpose
you might have come to mind, please tell me or e-mail your request
to rnelson@walden3d.com with the request 'lovelet update.'
With all my love,
Roice