Ski Boat retrieval on the Saline River-23nov 9am@ Lyle park

[Jim Krueger]

Thank you Cowper and Doug for for calling this to our attention! The ski boat was removed, and other items as well I'll look forward to your report Cowper, and always, your friendship and leadership to us all!
It was such a nice last couple of days weather-wise, the Saline is pretty clear, and with nice Fall color, and it was so nice to see several old friends, and meet a couple of new ones.

Best Regards
Jim

[Cowper]

I've posted an album of on Facebook for those of you with access to that:

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set ... 196&type=3" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I may try to get some up on whatever I replace Webshots with, as soon as I figure which service that will be. It just doesn't make sense to me to post them there now when I am probably within a week or two of taking my business elsewhere.

Here's a shorter version for those of you who can't get to the Facebook version:

Nine folks showed up and were rewared with a warm, sunny day.

We got a big tire, plus nine other tires

[Cowper]

We got the motorboat you saw earlier...

And of course, some furniture.

[Cowper]

And I'd like to close by recognizing the efforts of every team member, listed in no particular order (forgive me if I leave out part of what you did):

Doug Webber - lured me to the Saline for the "discovery" trip, and picked the day to go back and get the boat, thus making sure it went from "dreaming" to "reality", and put out the call for help on the ACC message board. And hopefully has some video documentation of the efforts...

Woody Harris - Helped with much of the heavy lifting and recovery of several tires, also showed kayaks can carry out tires too!

Gary Low - Spotted our largest tire of the day, as well as several others

Jon Ellwood - Towed my boat downstream so I could pilot the motorboat, carried a tire of his own, and went back with me on Saturday to help Jim and Steve unload at the dump.

Jim Krueger - Brought the big trailer which was key to getting it all to the dump, plus carried out the largest tire and several other tires.

Chicago Bob - Carried out multiple tires, and a flat-screen TV. Was also "in the right place at the right time" to give us a little push that kept me and Steve from spinning and dropping over the dam sideways with the motorboat when it hung on the lip of the dam.

Todd Anderson - Helped with the tires, collected and carried so much trash in his lap that at one point he was having trouble paddling his kayak downstream

Steve Gabbard - Knew who to call, and called them, got us permission to bring anything we pull out of the Saline River in Benton to the city landfill FOR NO CHARGE. Wore the drysuit, went after the "deep" tires, and let us use his truck to carry out a really NASTY load of furniture that had been dumped near the take-out. Provided an overnight storage place for everything and helped with unloading the next day. Helped me run the motorboat over the low head dam. (YES, we took it all the way downstream to the take-out near I-30.)

Cowper (me) - Made one extra scouting mission the day before Thanksgiving, piloted the motorboat downstream, brought the trolling motor, battery, boat plug, bilge pump, shovel (for tires), and other "contingency" tools, and well, just being me...

EVERYBODY - providing the muscle to move the boat into the water, digging out and loading tires, and more.
Total count, 2140# (over a ton!), 1 motorboat, 10 tires, 1 Flat screen TV, one tube from old-style TV, big couch, lazy-boy type recliner, child's plastic toy car, and several bags of smaller trash items including of course a fair share of glass bottles. This was a tremendous effort for a relatively smaller team!

EDITED TO ADD: Gary captured this shot, which is probably one of the more exciting moments of the day since we weren't 100% sure how it would turn out:

Running the Low Head Dam at the Benton Water Plant