The Perfect Day

We picked a perfect day to enjoy summer. On Tuesday three of us traveled to Taylor's Falls.  We boarded our watercraft.  I was in my kayak and the other two were in a canoe.  We almost had the entire St. Croix river to ourselves.  The temperature stayed in the 70's.  The sky was blue with feathery, wispy clouds.  The breeze, when it came by, was always at our backs.  Sometimes the water was so still the river was like a big, long mirror.  We stopped at admire the Indian pictographs. We found them right away this time.  But we didn't stop for lunch there as we usually do. We waited to eat at the Osceola landing instead.  We decided to go for the long trip today.  So we headed south towards William O'Brien state park.  We admired the osprey nest on the railroad bridge.  We saw great blue herons wading in the water.  A green heron flew branch to branch down river ahead of us.  Eagles soared overhead.  Pileated woodpeckers called from the woods.  A group of cedar waxwings hovered over the river catching bugs.  We saw a group of soft shell turtles warming themselves on logs.  I don't think the turtles would feel as free to warm themselves on a weekend day when the river traffic is much higher.  Paddling today was easy.  Before we knew it we had reached the northern boundary of the state park.  Already?  We had 2 hours until the bus would come to take us back to the car.  So we quit paddling.  We hugged the Minnesota shore to get out of the sun and just floated down close to the limestone walls.  Oh, it was so lovely.  Between the scenery, the wildlife, the birds, the company and the conversation it was a perfect day. This is the kind of day you want to bottle up and save so you can relive it again during the dreary month of February.