"Run, Run River...

...carry me to my home in the ocean. Carry me away." - jon swift

Warning: Picture overload!

When I last left off, Nate and I were in Prattville, Alabama with my parents for a couple of nights. We ate some good food, watched a lot of football and had a great time catching up with them! Thanks for coming to see us Mom and Dad! They dropped us off at Cooter's Pond Park and we had a windy 8 mile paddle to Gunter Hill Campground.

Mr. Terry, from a neighboring campsite at Gunter Hill, asked us if we cared for a cup of coffee before we continued on our journey for the day. We were thankful for the coffee AND the conversation! 

Nine miles in the pouring down rain brought us to this campsite where we set up a makeshift shelter with our rain fly. We spent the afternoon drying off, warming up, journaling and reading. We thought it was going to rain even more, but the sun actually came out! The beavers kept slapping their tails at us like we needed to get out of their way! We got out early the next day so we could make it to our next campsite. 

 After paddling our first 25.6 mile day, we finally made it to Prairie Creek Campground. This day was mentally pretty hard for me. The distance on our map didn't look as far as it actually was, the wind was blowing hard, my hands were super cold and wet.  Nate was so good about encouraging me and telling me that I was doing a great job. Once we got to the campsite, we set up the tent and took a good shower to warm us up. Thankful to be clean and warm! 

Our first experience in the locks on the Alabama River. The lock master threw us a bag of bottled water and bananas (Nate ate those) before he opened the gates to let us out on the other side. What a crazy thing! It's like you're in a bathtub that's draining all the water out. We dropped down about 40 feet! 

We made it to Selma! The Edmund Pettus Bridge greeted us on our way in to town.

Lee and Babs Bender offered their house on the river to us for the night. They were a nice family that we got connected with through the ASRT organization. Lee and Babs helped us map out our next few camping spots and gave us some more connections down the next section of river. We were so grateful for the Bender's hospitality and generosity toward us (showers, a bed, a loaned car to get groceries, some amazing food and help along the river)! 

Because of the way our next few stops were spaced out, we only were paddling about 5 miles to our next campground. We stopped around noon, ate lunch, fished some, got to see one of our friends from a distance, and enjoyed the afternoon together. The spanish moss was just beautiful here! Also, probably the coldest night on the trip that we had experienced thus far.

This day, we paddled about 12 or 13 miles to the confluence of the Cahaba River and the Alabama River. We got out at an old, muddy boat ramp to walk around Old Cahawba. This was the site of Alabama's first capital and now it's a park of sorts with signs explaining what used to be there. You had to use your imagination to get a good grasp of the old town, but it was a great place to stretch the legs and eat lunch. Pretty interesting.

Mr. Woody Till is a man who we were connected with through the ASRT organization and he lets paddlers camp on his land...good thing too, because nothing we saw on either side of the river was giving us hope for a flat spot to sleep for the night! Mr. Till has a beautiful piece of property with a creek that runs through it. Cypress trees galore. When we arrived there after another 5 or 6 miles, we sought out a flat spot, rested in the sunshine, and practiced our fly fishing casts from the dock. Thanks Mr. Till for your willingness to let us camp! It was another cold, but enjoyable night!

While paddling this day, we were greeted on the river by Mr. Bobby Wright. We had been in communication with him earlier in our trip and knew that we would be staying with him that night. At around 2, we saw a pontoon boat heading straight for us. We were greeted by Mr. Bobby, who offered to tow us back to his house, but we were another 4 miles from his place. We had decided that we wanted to paddle the rest of the way, or at least to the entrance of the creek he lived on. We asked if Mr. Bobby wouldn't mind us getting a lift from the entrance of his creek to his house and then back again in the morning...he said he'd be glad to! Hooray! Mr. Bobby, his wife Dot, and their friend Chet, put us up for the night and treated us so well. Thanks to the White Oak Creek Crew! 

After we left Mr. Bobby and the Crew, we paddled about 19 miles to make it to Gee's Bend Park, which doesn't typically let people camp, but because we were doing the ASRT, we made ourselves at home underneath the pavilion to help keep some of the dew off of us. 

This is one of the many eagles we saw on our trip. This guy stayed still long enough for me to get a pretty good shot of him!

Nate and I paddled the longest 12 miles of our life to get to Miller's Ferry Campground. It was pretty cloudy and cold all day. Rain fell on and off and we knew we were meeting our besties that afternoon. Mary, Dave and Becca drove over to meet us before heading our separate ways for Thanksgiving.

Bests!!!!! So thankful for all of these faces!!!

Driving to Scottsboro for the holiday's!

Nate and I enjoyed using our legs for the first time in a while by running at the high school's track with William and Sarah on Thanksgiving Day. We went out to the lake place to fish, play with the nieces and catch a beautiful sunset.

Then, to Grandmama's house we went! I love this house and everything it means. A baby grand piano that always seems to have music coming from it, the basement ping pong table, the hardwood floors, the backyard where we used to run with the mule, the front yard's oak tree, the familiarity and the smells. Home. Family.

Breakfast at Connie's with my brother. Doesn't really get much better.

A surprise celebration for THIS girl's birthday!!!! 

The Wood Brother's concert, eating some good seafood and tirimisu cake, celebrating my bests 26th birthday, being with good friends and having a slumber party at Angela's! so. much. fun.

Our good friend, Becca dropped us back off to continue on our journey. Not paddling for 8 days makes beginning again feel pretty weird. It's almost like our arms forgot how to move our paddle, but 17 miles later, we were at our next campsite, Holley's Ferry Park.

We were given so many gifts along the way, like fish....

and cash! 

The generosity of strangers. A beautiful thing.

Our final dam and lock to go through on our trip down the river! Another milestone! 

We had to walk back to our boats after we got a hitch to a grocery store to replenish some of our food. Thankfully, a man named Mickey Jones picked us up a little bit after this picture to take us the rest of the way. What an incredible feeling! 

He'll never know how much that ride meant to us.

At this point, we had hit the 500 total mile mark! Such a huge milestone!

This was our campsite at Haine's Island Ramp on December 1st! 

We sang Christmas carols as we paddled that day. 

A sandbar campsite for the night. Pretty perfect if you ask me!

Paddling through the Tensaw-Mobile Delta Region..pretty remote and beautifully overgrown. I'm amazed we didn't see an alligator in this area! 

We paddled our first 30 mile day! 

Some of SIFAT's former counselors and friends came to see us and pick us up at Cliff's Landing and put us up for 2 nights! Such a great gift to be loved well, fed well, cleaned well....thanks Tim and Kaitlyn!!!

This is I-65 that spans Mobile Bay. We have driven over this bridge so many times in our lives, but paddling underneath it is a whole different experience! We paddled 25 miles in the ripping wind to Fairhope, where we spent a couple of nights with our friends Jamie and Rachael. What a huge help and encouragement they were to us in our last days of the trip! 

Meet Barb and Russ. They are some friends from Canada who are wintering in south Alabama. They offered to help us get our car all the way down to Fort Morgan at the terminus of the Alabama Scenic River Trail. They were so kind to meet us for breakfast our second to last day, drop us off, and take our car to our finish line! 

The final morning of our trip at a campsite right before Bon Secour. We were so excited and anxious to be completing the trail! What we didn't anticipate, was how difficult the day would prove to be! Wind, waves, cold and exhaustion!

If you can see the land in the far distance of this picture, you can gain some perspective of picking a point/goal and going for it. This was the game for the day.....in about 3-4 foot swells. What a way to end our trip!

631 miles completed by Team Paulk.....can you tell we are excited??

Gratitude goes out to: two months of traveling with my husband and best friend, a journey of a lifetime, completing a goal that we set for ourselves, to all of the many people who fed us, gave us gifts, let us shower at your house, encouraged us, and loved us along the way! We couldn't have done it without you! 

More adventures coming soon! 

Merry Christmas from the Paulk's!