Canoeing on the Huron River

Today we went canoeing on the Huron River, which runs through Ann Arbor in surprisingly wild-looking banks. If you lift your gaze, you can see tall buildings and city streets on bridges above, but still have the illusion that you are far from everything. Occasional helicopters and sky-writing planes overflying the Michigan Stadium during the hugely big game also reminded us that we had not escaped civilization (or maybe that we hadn't found civilization, depends on your perspective).

Our friend Abby joined us -- you can see her red-orange kayak in some of the photos. We started at Argo canoe livery, and went 2 miles upriver to Barton Dam:



On the way back down the river, we saw a heron:





We paddled past the livery, through the sluiceway around Argo Dam, and on down past Island Park and its classical pavillion:



As we went past the Arboretum, our canoe hung up on a very shallow part of the river, and we had to get out and push it into deeper water. Luckily, it was an unusually warm day, a remarkable October day with the characteristic bright blue sky.

We ended at the Gallup Park canoe rental building, where a van from the livery picked us up and drove us back to our parked cars.