After five p.m. on a Saturday is not the best time to float a kayak at River Walk Park.  The Pump House Restaurant near the launch ramp was beyond packed because it was prom night.  The traffic on both the I-77 and U.S. 21 bridges was disturbing.  Somewhere in the background a voice from microphone at a nearby event made the irritating breathy sound I associate with certain ministers on local cable television.  I was exactly in the middle of the Catawba River that runs through the fastest growing county (2016) in the United States.

I gave up on casting around the big rocks near the launch ramp and headed a half mile down river toward Spratt Island and swung left into the flooded channel on the Fort Mill side of the river.  I found some noise relief and the privacy that comes from a canopy that encloses the waterway.

Just around the second bend I took my eye off the current and traced the flashing bright white of the bald eagle that took off aloft hard enough to rock the limb it was perched on just before I saw it.

Slightly right and then mostly up in it circled above the giant steel power transmission towers looking back toward the spot it had left.  I stared at to for awhile and left it perched again on one of the power lines to find my way into a more overgrown smaller branch of the Catawba River.

Ever seen an old photo of a well-dressed man from the 1950s wearing two-toned dress shoes?  The white tail feathers and white head bring that unexpected two at once experience to mind.  Nothing neutral there.  It is meant to stick out.

(April 23, 2017)