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Evidence was piling up suggesting that the Lower Umpqua River was an excellent smallmouth bass fishery. Youtube videos showed happy fisherpeople struggling to hold up stringers laden with fat fish which was enticing, but also multiple pontoon boats careening towards various dubious underwater ends which looked all too probable for long kayaks. Uncle Rico and Kip shifted gears into research mode and before long had analyzed the serpentine path of the river and come up with a figury-eightish route (if 'eights' had 3 or more loops) that only required advanced technical paddling prowess for two water obstacles over an otherwise negotiable 27 miles of drifting. Photo courtesy Google Earth The accumulated Covid-19 death toll for America had only just topped 100,000 at the end of May, just a week after 10 Oregon churches had sued the governor for mandating masks and public distancing. While these kinds of reactions established that the United States was not responding well to t...

Basalt monolith Basks in prodigal sunlight Dreams of bikinis Rigid magma spine Keeps talking ‘bout glory days Not so hot right now Maybe men did this Built a highway in the sand Turns out they didn’t Bipolar vandal Breaking in two times a day Ransacking the bay Elder trees once said It’s time to set down some roots Timing’s everything Broken in upheaval My hidden faults revealed Too sediment-al Defiant posture Land intimidates the sea Look at my mussels! Sediments tilted Up and down are east and west What the hell happened? Multi-lane highways Time crafted for nobody And not meant for cars Rocks dissolve before The universal solvent’s Twice daily licking The sea sets forth its Restless liquid arsenal Per lunar command Millennial war Battered ramparts stand between Order and chaos Floating continents Bump and jostle each other Sometimes get upset Wind and waves persist Earthen fortifications Bow to gravity Bits of history Recorded in sand and stone Lost in the telling A shor...