Your Kalamazoo and St. Joe Rivers Winter-Time Trek

Email exchange with Charlie Parmalee:

My masochistic hero! Taking stupid pills again? I'm with you all the way from my warm chair in front of my glowing screen with my bottle of Coors.

Kit Lane, author of "The Grand" which I have donated to GRE 2010, has done a book on the Kalamazoo. I have a copy. She is working on a book on the St. Joe. I'll find out how far along she is. By copy of this I will let her know what you are about to do. She will want to follow along. If she is not "birding" in some ridiculous place such as Estonia, Bolivia or Oman, I am sure she will want to come out and watch you suffering someplace.

Where are you launching on the Grand? When? What do we call the trip? Charlie's Odyssey 2009?

By copy of this I will ask Geneva Wiskeman for something on the history of those towns.

Also by copy of this to Bryon Ennis I will notify G.R.E.A.T. that you are invading their territory.

Remember, when LaSalle ran into ice he put runners on his canoes.

Jim Woodruff
thetopologist
On the Grand River
in Delta Township

--- On Thu, 12/3/09, Beaverwood13@aol.com <Beaverwood13@aol.com> wrote:

From: Beaverwood13@aol.com <Beaverwood13@aol.com>
Subject: (no subject)
To: thetopologist@sbcglobal.net
Date: Thursday, December 3, 2009, 6:36 AM

Hi Jim
I have been scouting (in the truck) the Grand River to Liberty and portage to the north branch Kalamazoo to Albion, south branch Kalamazoo to Homer and portage to the St. Joe River. I went as far as the Town of Colon....... Scouted the little towns on highway 60 where the rivers cross the highway.
I'm sure there's some history in each little town....I wonder if anyone has wrote it down. There was a recent fire in the town of Union city.
They were there with a fire truck and boom truck boarding up the windows and doors. I like to stop at these old towns along the river when I'm on a trip.
An old restaurant or old store with creeky wood floors are favorite places for me....dont even let me into an old hardware store....you'll never get me out of there.
I checked out the land portages and the ones around the dams, took some notes on which side to portage the dams and best take out / put in  places.
I'm hoping to paddle this trip this winter if the water stays open long enough. If I get through the small stuff in December the bigger part of the St. Joe
will probably be open longer. It doesn't look like I'll be able to do the trip all at once. Maybe 3 - 4 days at a time. I'm trying to fit it in between family get togethers, band practices, the holidays and G.R.E. 2010 meetings. So I'm packin up my gear, fluffin' up that 0 degree sleeping bag, packing my woolies and
hot chocolate and hoping the weather holds for a couple more weeks. I figure it will take a couple weeks with the short hours of daylight and the water being a little low I will have to pole and line up some of the smaller places on the Grand River and North branch of the Kalamazoo. Anyway I want to have you along
again on this one.....same as before.....you in your easy chair, nice, warm and dry, suckin down a Coors beer.....eating a * * * *..ING STEAK.....
And me in the canoe freezing my ass off, slogging up creeks, eating power bars and other healthy shit, drinking gatorade, sleeping in the canoe and sadly but true enjoying every minute of it. So get stocked up on beer and steak and get ready for the show coming soon to a river near you.

                                             Your paddling pal, forever loyal and greatful Servant.............Charlie Parmelee