Ozark Vacation: Canoeing the Norfork River

My lovely wife, Sun-Ae, who is now again sitting across from me at her desk, has forwarded more belated Ozark photos from a couple of 'adventures', and today's batch -- borrowed from my brother Uncle Pat -- comes from the Norfork River, upstream of that beautiful Ozark lake that faithful readers have already seen a couple of times recently.

We first glimpse Sun-Ae canoeing as En-Uk pretends to follow suit by paddling the air:


In the background . . . uh, backwater . . . are Aunt Shoshanna and her husband, my brother, Uncle Shannon. All of my brothers are now getting called "Uncle" as I adopt the perspective of my kids. Anyway, Aunt Shoshanna and Uncle Shannon took Sa-Rah with them in their canoe, and you see her sitting with enthusiasm between them in the photo below:


Minus a paddle, she has little to do other than observe the scenery as it slips greenly by. Below is an image of Sa-Rah looking older and wiser as she contemplates how life is like a river of love:


I can imagine from this photo what she'll look like 10 years from now. But before that time, she will have undergone many amazing and even inexplicable experiences . . . such as that common, rural-myth experience of the mysterious, disappearing canoe:


"What's up . . . down? Sideways? Vanished? Where the wind-blown hail is that dadgum canoe gone to?!" mutters Uncle Shannon in his most genuine simulation of hillbillified accentification.


Reverend John, having worked his "Miracle of the Disappearing Canoe," attempts another 'ubernatural' wonder: "Fleeing on Water." But like the anxious Saint Peter, his faith has weakened, leaving his fallible feet to slip beneath the surface tension even as he flees . . . and leading us to wonder if an irate Sa-Rah will manage to apprehend this impressive but erring uncle.


Uncle Pat, meanwhile, flashes his Chesire Smile at the charismatic hillbilly antics as Shannon and Shoshanna's canoe mysteriously reappears in the deepening afternoon of lengthening shadows. But my brother the 'Chesire Pat' is himself about to disappear, leaving us more to wonder . . .

. . . O Brother, Where Art Thou?