Kayaking on Flaming Gorge

Wednesday 8/22

Woke to very overcast, dark-grey skies for our planned kayak day.  :-(  Even some sprinkling of raindrops.  Well, at least it was cool out.  By 10am we decided to risk it.  What a great time we had, with the gorge pretty much all to ourselves.  Flaming Gorge is flaming gorgeous (I can't be the first one to coin that phrase, either).  We saw grey herons, hawks, fish jumping and wild turkeys along the road, on our way to the boat launch.  And then we were surrounded by amazing geology….striped white, pink and red stone in a state of crumbling, ueber slow motion decay.  It's surreal when human time scale sits for a moment, contemplatively, in geological/earth/universal time….the human time frame is  just the wink of a wink of an eye by comparison.  It's bizarre to wrap one's head around that.  Also very relaxing and peaceful in a way….the whole notion of rushing and stressing out seem absurd.

See the profile in the rocks?

You can sort of tell that the rocks are reddish in the background

Mama and Papa birds next to their big nest

We were on the water for at least 3 hours, exploring little side canyons,  and just generally gawking at the whole spectacle.  Unlike our previous attempt at canyon kayaking, the water was calm, the temp was pleasant and not too windy, and there was only enough rain at the beginning to ensure that we had it all to ourselves.  Brilliant!