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Show 224 Red Canyon The sun is trying to shine for the first time in three days, but it is still cold. We have just come around a bend and something has told me to look behind. I obey the impulse and find myself staring up at an unusual petroglyph, many hundreds of years old, on the red rock above the river. There is olive-green shrubbery partially covering it but it appears to be a sunburst or perhaps it is the spiraling symbol of eternity. I am scrambling to get my camera out of its waterproof Army ammunition can and I ask Julie in the bow to back-paddle as hard as possible, but before I am set to photograph, the current has carried us around another bend in the river and the image is lost to my camera. There is no time to mourn its loss. The wind is stronger around this bend and we must dig our paddles strongly into the waves to keep the canoe heading straight into them. Capsize is a very real possibility. Rex, my big red service dog, laying against the ribs of the canoe between us, is shifting positions to get out of a damp puddle of water settling there and I calm him with my voice, willing him not to tip us too far one way or the other in his adjustments. I am looking far ahead of our position to see the other canoes and only glimpse our youngest, now eight years old, in the red canoe, paired with muscular Allen, the recreation therapist in charge of this trip. She is happy, thankfully bundled in warm clothing, naively thinking that the |