Last Tour

I look out on the lawn and count the boats and then check the rest of the gear. Perfume carried across the breeze is the first indication that the clients have started to arrive. They are all from one group and chat busily. We get them suited up and oriented in a quick, well practiced fashion. Launching is just as quick. The air is crisp and what leaves are left have turned the muted colors of late fall. The tree line is hazy with naked branches. A steady north wind blows us down a river that was teaming with life not 2 weeks ago but is now only populated with a couple cormorants and a few migratory gulls. A lonely turkey vulture wheels in the sky over a field in the distance, searching for something hunters may have left behind. The group is pleasant and the boat I am in, interesting. It would be more at home in surf or among rocks than traveling down wind and covering miles. This has turned into a pleasant way to tour the river one last time this season. I won't be on it again until spring.