It’s About Canoeing, Not Corporal Punishment! LOL!

Exciting news today from one of my publishers, Falcon Guides. After 17 years, my second book, Paddling Alabama, will get a facelift. The book has performed really well for Falcon since its release in 2002, but it’s time to re-visit the paddles included in the book and add some new ones.

For those of you unfamiliar with it, the book features 50 canoe and kayak trips in the state of Alabama and, as is the case with all Falcon guides, it is loaded with information about the sport.

It was an interesting book to write. It was the first time I had co-authored a book. I recruited my office mate in my day-time job, Curt Burdick, to help with it. It was a very dry summer and as most of you know, many creeks and smaller rivers dry up or become too shallow to paddle here in the South. At times we thought we should have named the book, “Walking the Rivers of Alabama”.

As we pulled our own version of the Titanic – a 15 foot Coleman canoe – down the shallows, the guy up front would be walking along, the guy in back would stumble on rocks and pull the canoe backwards, then the guy up front would fall into the drink. By the time it was over, we hated each other (just kidding, but close). When it came time to take our author photo, we thought it should have been the two of us sitting in a canoe, facing different directions trying to paddle away from each other. The publisher said no.

There was plenty adventure during that writing. We ventured to Coosa County to do a run on one river and couldn’t find a good put in. A local resident spotted us and told us he would lead us to the spot.

We followed behind this guy’s jacked up Ford F250 (complete with a bed full of shotguns) deep into the woods. When we finally arrive at our destination, we were in the middle of absolute nowhere. Curt and I stepped from the car and to find this guy pulling a pistol on us!

He saw the look on our faces and said, “No, no!! This is to shoot snakes! I’m the local constable!”

It was a really great little book and one I don’t talk about nearly enough (for one thing, we both hated the stock 1970s looking cover the publisher used), so it will be good to bring it back to life and up to date.