Welcome to Rumble Strip, Vermont. It's almost November and it's getting cold here.

The days are getting shorter. I'm already missing the color and the sound of summer and fall.

So today I'm going to play one of my all-time favorite stories, which

just happens to also be a story that's filled with the sound of summer. It's called

Stories from the Green River and it's by Scott Carrier, who produces my favorite

podcast called Home of the Brave. I have to confess a profound ignorance about what I'm doing. My preparation for this float trip consisted of buying a canoe and then grabbing a

Wyoming roadmap from a rest stop on the drive up. I've been in a canoe a couple of times and I thought I knew how to make it turn and go straight.

And I'd seen the river from several bridges I crossed on other trips and other years, and it was

always wide and calm and flat, so I thought I could manage well enough. I could have

practiced with the canoe, gone out with someone who could show me the strokes, and I

could have read up on the river, learned about what was in store for me, but I chose not to do these things.

When you try to lay things out, try to control what's going to happen,

you always end up disappointed or frustrated.

At least I do.

My first surprise has been that the river at the top was not calm and flat.

There were rapids, big rapids. I floated down and camped where I first heard

the roar. It sounded like this. This sound was carried on the wind to my tent off and on through the night and it

rained with lightning and thunder. I got up with the sun, made some coffee, and prepared for the worst.

I double and triple wrapped everything in garbage bags and tied it all into the canoe, and then I took off my clothes.

It would be easier to swim naked and if I was to drown I wanted for some reason to drown naked.

I started down the river praying for all the ants I'd ever stepped on for all the bugs

that had splattered into my windshield. I prayed for dirt and discarded things. I prayed for all my forgotten memories.

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