ROGUE RIVER RUN

This challenge brought about a happy memory
I hadn't visited for some time.  My thanks to
our hostess this week.
Submitted to dVerse
Haibun/haiku
March 20, 2017
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When visiting my daughter, who lives in Salem, Oregon, we chose to take a ride up the Rogue River on one of the jet boats that deliver the U.S. mail from Gold Beach to isolated spots on the river.  There were about 15 people in our group.  It was a glorious day and a glorious opportunity to see the unspoiled and unpopulated course of the Rogue, where we saw heron, cormorant, osprey, a bald eagle, and assorted wildlife   It seemed to be as it had been since the beginning of time, a veritable untouched Eden. 

At mid-day we stopped at Lucas Lodge, which is at the confluence of the Rogue and the Illinois River.  There we were seated at one large table with red-checkered tablecloth, and served a farmhouse style dinner of crispy fried chicken, buttery mashed potatoes, garden vegetables, hot biscuits with blackberry jam, and apple pie.  It was a quiet group at first, but I suggested we go around the table and introduce ourselves.  What followed was a meal I will always remember.  Conversation flowed freely amongst the varied folks at the table … a pair on their honeymoon (blushing appropriately), an employee of the timber industry, a save-the-white-owl environmentalist, a pharmacist (my daughter), our tour guide and others.   By the time we got to the apple pie, we were a congenial group, and we found our way back down the hill and boarded the boat for the trip back to Gold Beach. That meal somewhere on the Rogue is one of my pleasantest memories.

Summer on the Rogue
far from civilization
worries fall away