We are in Wenatchee Wa.

Unfortunately my trip is over. I must now leave the brigade and go home. Sadly, I am leaving many new friends behind. The Wenatchee World has done an article on the brigade and put me on the FRONT page of the Saturday morning paper. I took a lot of raspberries about being a "rock star" and a "photo hog" etc.I am hoping it was ALL in good fun.!  We had many good laughs all day about this. NALS team was just fantastic for this entire trip. Denny and Delores DeMeyer do not get enough acculades for this. They even took us out to lunch yesterday for a very good Mexican Lunch. This is a recurring theme. We need real good Mexican food in Slave Lake if anyone is listening. On another note , I spotted a Smittys Rest. in Wenatchee yesterday. I was unable to convince the 14 other people to go there for lunch.
      The City of Wenatchee showed up in throngs and were rewarded with fabulous sunshine on one of the hottest days we have experienced since we started. Again I am very impressed with the way people have grabbed hold of the Brigade and made it part of their heritage. The local government and the state legislature both made resolutions based on the Brigade and on David Thompson. How to go Wenatchee. The City claims to be the Apple Capital of the World. It is very pretty in town for sure and you can hear the scatter guns going off on the orchards as you paddle the Columbia.
    The City  fed us a very good BBQ meal and all in all it was fabulous. They had dancing,professional musicians,camp fires and songs and the whole scebang was really great. I had to go to my hotel around 8 Pm as I could not keep my eyes open. Starting at 4:30 AM does that to you. I even fell asleep on the phone with my wife I was so tired..
    I have always loved being on the water since I was a yound kid,if it is in my kayak or any boat but there is a different feeling when you are working as a team to generate the power to get a 280 lb boat accelerating through back waters and eddies. We had an unfortunate incident yesterday that bent our flagpole that showed how people could work together to accomplish things even under duress. I have added up all my mileage and I  only paddled about 478 km of the estimated 1600 to do. Half days (sharing the paddling so everyone gets some) and issues with Power Dams made for a couple of short paddle days. I have some great pictures and videos that I will edit clean up and upload to my flickr site in the next month.All my best to one and all and thanks for following my little adventure.Here is the photo that made the front page of the Wenatchee World.

The website isn`t setup the same as the paper was but it is a very good read indeed.  :-)




Wenatchee World June 26-2011/Kathryn Stevens



An extreme takeout

Hand over Hand and Up the Bank.

Bernie Couldn`t stay awake either !

Denny and Delores.

Oops sorry Buddy :-)