I met up with my “friend who’s like a sister/frister” Pam at Rosland Park near the Little Deschutes River in Oregon. It was a late birthday celebration for Pam ( a mere child in her early 60’s) and an early celebration for me turning 76. That’s me to the right with Pam and Peso just below.
We gathered our two paddleboards, her super cool dog Peso and a picnic lunch then drove the other car about 6 miles south and upstream where we’d put in for a day of paddling the rural beauty of the Little Deschutes.
The twists and turns of the river made for surprises at almost every bend. In the 13 miles we surprised a huge elk, had a hilarious encounter with at least 8 families of annoyed geese with their hatchlings in tow, and one plunge into the river after a cottonwood branch leashed out and threw Pam overboard. Surprises like a fallen tree that gave us less than 18″ clearance added to the laughs and fun.
The best part of the day was the 4 hours of catching up since we hadn’t paddled together in about a year. Stories and laughs filled the air. Mid paddle we found the perfect spot for a picnic lunch – with chairs and the air filled with dandelion puff balls and no mosquitos.
In the spirit of this story-blog I decided to give my Chat GPT assistant (whom I call Kate) a short prompt to see what story she would come up with about this paddle adventure. I should have told her the correct names to use – I will get better at prompts. She named Pam – Nora, and Judy – Alice.
ou can read the PDF of the story Kate generated IN UNDER 30 SECONDS! She made us way more tentative and mellow than the amazingly powerful and skilled paddlers we actually are – but than again, I allowed the prompt to define us by age, not by experience and sense of adventure. I think Kate did really well, especially in her description of the Little Deschutes, the cottonwoods and the friendship.
Elder SUP 