Travels with Walter: St. Maries River

On Thursday Walter and I headed back to Idaho for a paddle on the St. Maries. We put in right in downtown St. Maries where the St. M river dumps into the St. Joe. It seems like I have been spending an awful lot of time in Idaho. The river is really mellow and just meanders along with lots of oxbow turns. The weather was a bit less than ideal but we paddled for a few hours until the wind picked up, the sky got a bit ominous and the leaves on the deciduous trees started curling up. It never did storm though. After the paddle we sat by the river and had dinner (cold quesadillas). I got off work early tonight because my caseload is down and went for a lovely paddle on the Spokane river. I put in by Upriver Dam and paddled to Donkey Island where I took a darn cold swim in my skivvies. I have still been having trouble with my vitamin D levels. I am on my third round of mega dose. It seems that I go on the loading dose, finish the ten weeks, start to feel better, go on the maintenance dose and then crash. My levels have gone from 11 to 24 and then to a whopping 25 three weeks ago. My rheumatologist wants me at 75 minimum. I sort of feel like I have missed a bit of the summer because I have had to push myself to go out and do thing. Hiking has been out of the question for the most part. Currently I am not taking any medication for the lupus because at this point it is too hard to tell what the cause of the joint pain is. I have been back on the big dose of D for almost 3 weeks and am starting to feel better. The suckiest part of all this has been the deep bone pain which seems to be easing up a bit.

At any rate, here are some pics of the St. Maries.

The St. Joe and St. Maries rivers

Really wild spawn on a log. The log was covered in about an inch of goo with thousands of egg clusters that go down into the water about a foot. The cells look really divided but the color out of the water looks weird. My guess is they will not hatch. I wanted to call Molder and Skully to come take a look.