J.D. Hodges

It’s tough to come up with good titles anymore after having a website/blog for 10+ years. Actually, I’m not sure I was ever very good at picking blog titles ;-). I almost entitled this blog entry “Mashed Potatoes and White Gravy”  due to me having mashed potatoes and white gravy three days in a row. However, I decided to title it “Kayak week and staying busy” and leave the permalink (URL) with the mashed potatoes bit…

2016 update, title changed to “Current river canoe/kayak trips and caves” 🙂

One of the times eating mashed potatoes and gravy 🙂

That three-day string was prompted by us eating at Benita’s: twice after kayaking the Eleven Point River (and also Springcreek for one of those trips), and once when Samantha and I went to town to pickup our metal roofing. On the Springcreek trip, we also did some hiking up a small tributary of the Eleven Point River:

Continue on to see photos one of my favorite

I also kayaked the Current River with my dad and friends. Here are some photos I took while on (and hiking near) the river:

This river cave, complete with a massive spring inside of it, was AWESOME:

^ Larry at the mouth of the cave

(continue on for more photos from inside the cave, a recap of what’s been going on, AND butterflies ;-))

^the view from inside the cave, toward the outside (that’s my dad)

^last photo of the cave, this is WITH a flash. It shows you how dark it is :-). Further back it gets pitch black…

^exploring another cave, this time ABOVE the water line 😉

^pretty flowers growing on a rock in the river (the rock is surrounded by water on all sides…)

And here’s the Wikipedia entry about the river:

So three kayak trips in four days, that’s my kind of week!

Our guests from AZ headed out on Monday and since then we’ve been BUSY:
+worked out a new storage system in my shop
+added water to, and checked specific gravity of, our batteries (the batteries are the energy storage component of our off-the-grid solar electrical system)
+cleaned off our screened-in porch and added some new storage
cabinets
+built a new “suspension desk” for my new office
+mowed (zero turn Kubota diesel)
+weed whacked (electric weed whacker)
+continued working on my iPhone app:

+plus a plethora of web projects for a variety of people (and myself)

Samantha has been equally busy doing all sorts of things. Between the two of us I feel like we’re accomplishing a lot :-).

Tomorrow my best friend Kevin is coming down to help me install part of the roofing. It’s going to be quite a job but I’m excited to get started on it and I really appreciate Kevin helping!

We’ve heard from a lot of friends lately and it seems like they are all doing really well this Spring, and that makes me happy :-). Along those lines of happy fuzzy feelings and thoughts, here are some butterflies that Samantha and I saw while on a walk around the farm: