On Sunday June 2, 2013, my family and some of our friends gathered to take an adventure down the Roanoke River. When my Dad bought his 2nd home on the river he wanted to take a canoe trip from the house to Greenhill Park in Salem. Unfortunately, we lost him to cancer before he could fulfill that wish.
In honor of his memory we took his ashes in a Maxwell House coffee can on a boating trip down the river in the front compartment of his kayak. We took 4 canoes and 8 kayaks down the river and gave him quite a show. At the start of the trip we had Rick and Alice, Barb and Lisa D, Victor and Mom & Kimmie, Aiden and I grouped up in the canoes. While J, William, Thomas, Cathy, Fred, Aidan, Mathias, and Larry all took kayaks.
After Rick and Alice flipped their boat for the second time we decided to separate them, but our mishaps did not stop there.... Most of us were either inexperienced at river boating or had not been for many years so there were a lot of mishaps as we made our way down the river.... Victor and Mom hit a rock and fell in, Cathy fell in several times, Rick and I zig-zagged the river and poor Alice and Kimmie got stuck on the rocks all the way to the bitter end.... Lisa D and Barb were successful at keeping their boat upright and facing the right direction for the most part...... And we did manage to keep all the small children in boats that were not dumped in the river which was nice.....
Along the way we would group back up and take short breaks together, usually when someone fell out of a boat...... When we took a short break at the bank where Mom and Victor tipped over to get everyone situated and we found ourselves surrounded by Yellow Swallowtail Butterflies...... Aiden managed to catch one while the rest of us enjoyed the beauty we stumbled upon.... It was just the type of thing Dad would have loved to have pointed out to us all.....
It wasn't long after that last break that the sky turned black and thunder started rolling...... Maybe if the river had been up a little higher we could have beat the thunderstorm and avoided some fo the rocks that got in our way, but alas those of us that thought they were going to make the whole trip and stay dry were sadly mistaken.....
As the first boats got to the final stretch the sky opened up and poured buckets of rain on our heads.... It was so bad we could barely keep our eyes open...... We all kept our heads up and pushed on to our final destination.... Green Hill Park.....
I have memories dating back to my childhood of going to that park with my parents and hiking the trails, we would watch for signs of wildlife and even walked up on deer more than once..... We took our Golden Retriever, George, to the river and would go out wading and finding small fish and Crawdads...... There are also lots of festivals and re-enactments and picnics there...... and even sporting events like the Mud Run Victor did one year one year....
At the end of our trip once everyone was gathered back together and we joined up with my cousins that met us at the park(Kim, Scott, Corey and Richard), we spread Daddy's ashes and tossed the dried flower petals from the funeral into the river to let him continue his journey where we left off.....GG was very worried that this experience would be too hard on Aiden as young as he is, but he seemed to understand enough and though he is not convinced cremation is the way to go, he was ok with Papaws decision to go that way, he just really wants to see him again.... I have been being very supportive of his grieving and showing him pictures and talking about how now Papaw will always be one with the river and there to talk to anytime he wants to or needs to....
Dad would have really enjoyed the day we all had together and at each mishap many of us could picture him sitting back critiquing us and laughing cause it wasn't him.... Everyone came back to the "River House" and enjoyed a nice cook-out complete with Coca-Cola, mixed drinks, sangria and Oreo cookies, some of Dad's favorites.... J cooked the burgers and dogs on Dad's grill and the weather cleared up so we could have a great end to an adventurous day.
Rodger Douglas Bivens July 16, 1944 - August 21, 2012
***I did not get the opportunity to take pictures of the event so I have pulled pictures and maps from the internet to help tell my story***
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