Beautiful Two Miles

First, I'm going to start by yelling at my friend who kept my bank card when we stopped for gas on Saturday. Because, when am I going to get the chance to go to his place and get it?! At the very moment I was walking past the front door, there was a knock. I said "Oh no!" and opened the door to find my friend, with my bank card and his kayak! Apparently, my dad had asked him last week to come with us, and they all (and I mean his wife and my mother too) decided to keep it a secret from me. It's my dad's birthday, he's supposed to get the surprise. While I'm very glad that our friend could join us (don't get me wrong, I really am, not to mention that I didn't have to worry about getting my bank card) there's a small part of me that was expecting the day to be a 'dad and me' day, so it would have been nice to have some warning that my expectations were off. I recognize that it was dad's birthday, and therefore his party, and therefore he says who comes with us or not. But a little bit of prior information would have been nice in this case.

So, on to the creek! It was grand! We put in around 1130 at Selby's Landing. We were going along the mudflats of the Patuxent River (south end of Jug Bay, if you want to know) and there was an opening in the vegitation. None of us had looked at the map that morning, so we weren't sure if that was Mataponi Creek, but we went that way anyway! There are some landmarks along the way that would tell us if we were on the right creek (it couldn't have been the wrong creek, even if it wasn't Mataponi, it was great to be out there). We passed a landing on the south side into Merkle Wildlife Sanctuary (Mataponi Creek is the border between that and Patuxent River Park to the north, so we did find the right creek), and an old beaver lodge, and then a bridge that combines the two parks (you can only drive across the bridge between 1200 and 1600 on Sundays), to where the creek ends at a massive beaver dam with a little waterfall. We went back and landed at the bridge and had lunch in the shade of the observation tower. It was here that I used the last shot on my camera!

We then went back to Selby's Landing where there is some manner of personal facilities, and then back on the water going up the bay. It was about halfway up when we decided we were tired and that it was time to head back (so we can shower and get the wives and go to dinner). All totaled, we were out for 5 hours! You can imagine, I'm beat! Oh, it was so fun!