Two for Tuesday: Road-River

Looking across the Charles River toward Boston from Memorial Drive.

More Two for Tuesday here.

Kayaking with RT

As most of my friends and family know I love kayaking. I like nothing better than spending hours on the water. And given the chance I will extol the joys of kayaking to anyone who will listen. My college roommate, and good friend, RT has heard much about my kayak trips and more than a year ago we started talking about getting her out on the water. She was having shoulder issues earlier this summer, but they have improved and our schedules finally aligned (despite her partner's broken arm) so this morning instead of heading out to Meeting, I picked RT up and we headed off for a kayak adventure.

For this first trip, we chose to launch from Charles River Canoe & Kayak in Newton. This site offers rentals and is on a gentle portion of the river. CRCK also has rental sites on Lake Cochituate in Natick and on the Charles in Boston. I don't recommend large lakes for a first kayaking experience because of wind induced waves and power boats, and the Charles in Boston tends to have quite a few power boats as well. The stretch of the river in Newton and Waltham is narrow enough to avoid the waves of open lakes and doesn't tend to have many power boats, so it met all the criteria for RT's first kayak paddle. We headed out early to avoid the inevitable crowds on this beautiful, sunny Sunday.

After making sure that RT was being taken care of by the rental staff I headed to the parking/duck feeding/launch area on the opposite shore. Once on the river it took me a couple minutes to find RT. I'd expected her to be hovering on or near the dock, but she had ventured out further to watch a blue heron having breakfast. I was entertained to discover that the rental staff had given her a boat that matched her hat.

We headed downriver, which is not my usual choice when doing a loop. Heading upriver first takes you under a number of roads (rt 30, on ramps for the turnpike and 128, the turnpike, and 128) so it takes a while to get to a section where you aren't listening to constant road noise. By heading downriver first we escaped the road noise fairly quickly, and the current on this stretch of the river is fairly minimal. Adding to that this morning was a stiff breeze blowing into our faces which we both decided was better to have at our backs on the way back.

We chatted as we paddled - about paddling, family, friends, and everything under the sun. Our pace was relaxed, a pleasant paddle on a gloriously beautiful day.
If you look closely you'll notice, as we did, that there are signs of fall in the plants at the river's edge.

The river critters were quite active this morning. During our paddle we saw ducks, herons (3 in total), and to RT's delight swans with cygnets. We did resist the urge to sing the ugly duckling, though it was a close call.
It was a lovely trip and we will do it again sometime.

Lensday: Alone

lone sailboat

This is evidence of the magic of composition. When I took this the river was full of sailboats. By positioning myself carefully I was able to capture this boat looking like it had the river to itself. The river really looked like this:

See more Lensday here.

PhotoSharks: Sunny

There hasn't been a lot of sun around here lately, but I captured this last Saturday morning.

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Moody Monday: Smooth

Another shot from my October 21st kayak on the Charles River in Natick.

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PhotoHunters: Long

The Charles River winds its way through the countryside before it reaches Boston. By car from this point it's about 20 miles. By river 36.8.

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Thursday Challenge: Black and White

Bridge on the Charles River in South Natick.
Taken October 21st.

I'd intended to provide a link to the colored version, but just discovered that I don't have it online and since I'm "over the river and through the woods" I don't have it available to upload. You can see a similar shot here. I'll try and remedy this oversight when I get home this weekend. Happy Thanksgiving!

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LensDay: Autumn

Autumn leaves reflected in the Charles River.
I'm quite fond of the abstractness of this.
Taken October 21st in South Natick.

More LensDay here.

Thursday Challenge: Orange

Traffic cone on the bottom of the Charles River. Taken in Waltham in September. This is near a storm drain outflow pipe. I think at some point it was intended to mark either the pipe or the shallow area surrounding it. Clearly it's not doing a very good job.

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Charles River Needham

Another Sunday, another kayak trip. The location this Sunday was also the Charles River. The river is something like 60 miles long and all of it is within 20 miles of my house. This makes for a lot of options for kayaking on it. The launch site for this week was in Needham, near the Wellesley line.

Parking here is limited. There's easy parking for about 4 cars (or two cars and a pickup truck with a boat trailer). After that it gets kind of tricky. I ended up parked just beyond the gravel at the side of the road.


It was another clear blue sky day. That is where the similarities to the previous week's weather ended. This Sunday was chilly, and windy. I suited up in all of my cold weather paddle gear. I should have added a fleece jacket and the full finger gloves instead of the ones without finger tips.

The tree color was more muted this week. It was still very nice to look at and photograph, just without the glow of a week earlier.


This section of the river has more marsh than the section in Natick. Most of the marsh grass has gone to yellows and browns, but every once in a while there was a green clump.

The river winds through the marsh, making the paddled distance much longer than the "as the crow flies" distance.

The wind made the paddle challenging at points. There were a couple of times when I came around a corner and found myself paddling with all my might to keep moving forward.


Not many critter sightings along this stretch. I guess all the smart ones were hunkered down somewhere warm. I did see a couple of swans, and a few turtles.



I love the architecture of dead trees. I have many, many pictures of them. Which doesn't keep me from taking more. Somewhere I have a picture of this tree taken a year and a half ago, on a warm June day.

I have a story to go with the last picture. In fifth grade I was chosen, or won the opportunity - I honestly don't remember which, to decorate a bulletin board in the classroom with a classmate. It must have been in October because Jenny and I decided to create a haunted house scene on the board. I spent hours creating the perfect tree for the haunted house - gnarly and tangled. I had just learned how to draw a tree, including not having to deal with ending the branches by hiding them behind other branches. The one for the bulletin board was cut out of construction paper. This tree reminded me of that one.

Charles River South Natick to Dover

I took a break from painting the bathroom last weekend and put the kayak into the water. We had unseasonably warm weather - it was in the 80s when I left the house at about 2:30pm - and as you can see from the pictures clear blue skies. I don't think I saw a single cloud.

I decided to stick close to home and put in just upriver of the South Natick dam. There is a small park on the river bank and several parking spaces. The only problem with this site is that the river bottom is mucky. This isn't a big
problem when putting the boat into the water, but it means there is no way to leave the river with clean feet.

The fall color was at it's peak last weekend, and I had a lot of fun taking pictures of the trees. The late afternoon light made most of the trees glow. It was stunning.

This section of the river has a nice variety of trees and plants so there was lots of varied color.

I also had lots of company. This section of the river has a couple of easy launch sites. That and the warm weather meant lots of folks were out in canoes and kayaks. I lost count at about 20 people.

This section runs through a portion of the Broadmoor Wildlife Sanctuary. This helps make it feel more remote than it really is.

The section of the river just upriver from here is the site of the "great turtle count". On a trip two years ago I counted 127 turtles (only counted in one direction) in about 2 miles. I did spy a few turtles in this section, though. Usually the turtles are quick to dive off the logs or rocks they're sunning on when approached.

I did get fairly close to this turtle family before the two on the left exited the log.






The larger turtle was much braver, and let me get within touching distance. I did not bother the turtle by touching it. I merely took advantage of his bravado and took pictures.

The other wildlife that I see on every trip is geese. Lots and lots of geese. This is true not only in the fall, but in spring and summer as well. I expect that most of the geese I see are residents, rather than those migrating.

Also, seen on this trip were a few mallards, leading to this picture which shows, say it with me, duck, duck, goose.


The trip was very nice. As the sun headed lower in the sky the other boaters left and I had the river to myself for the last mile.

A few more photos of the scenery.



This is a private bridge near the Wildlife Sanctuary.







One final thought - 2 1/2 hours of paddling after stripping wallpaper, and painting is not the smartest idea. I could barely move my arms the next day.

PhotoHunters: Pink

Sunset over Boston
Taken from the Cambridge side of the Charles River while sitting at a stoplight.
Note - the color has been adjusted slightly to intensify the pinks.

More PhotoHunters: here