When she was 10, my eldest daughter and I thought it would be fun to take a 3-day trip along the AuSable river in Michigan, following the path of the AuSable River Marathon race from Grayling down to Lake Huron. She had purchased a canoe when she was 7, when a neighbor was selling it at a garage sale, and she offered to pay him in 20 installments from her allowance and he agreed.
We really hadn’t used it much, and thought this trip would be just the ticket, besides offering a chance for some choice Father/Daughter time.
We spent the spring and summer avidly planning for the trip. Getting food and cooking supplies, and our tent. As there are several hydro dams along the river, notably the dam in Mio, we would have to portage several times, and I outfitted the canoe with a carry yoke. We practiced paddling in the backyard pool.
As the weekend in the summer approached, we went into a final frenzy of packing and repacking. I was finishing up stuff at work to free up time to drive to Grayling and the day off on Monday while Kathryn worked to get ready.
After work on Friday, we loaded the canoe on the car and packed all the supplies and headed north on US-27 toward Grayling. Some recent rain showers were ending, and the forecast was for a fine sunny weekend for our trip.
Grayling is near a National Guard Base, and every summer sees a lot of activity as Guardsmen from all over converge on the base to wage weekend wars and assorted military maneuvers and it isn’t uncommon to see various military vehicles and guardsmen throughout the town.
As we pulled into the parking lot for a Grayling canoe outfitter, there was a guardsman standing there directing traffic, and I opened my window and asked if he knew where a good place would be to park my car for our impending 3-day canoe trip.
Have you ever gotten the feeling you have just screwed up royally? He looked down at me with absolute disgust and astonishment and asked: “Are you not aware of what is going on? Have you not been listening to the weather reports lately? It has been raining here for the past three weeks and we are evacuating the town due to flooding. Can’t you see the river?” And here he pointed up stream to where the normally placid AuSable river was cascading three feet over the top of the dam.
“You can’t get on the river anywhere today, or for the next week. The river is legally closed. You will have to go somewhere else. Turn around and leave.”
So, we did. And I learned about paying attention to the weather where we were planning on canoeing, ahead of time.