To help set the tone for your day of independence, here’s a throwback to last year’s 4th of July celebrations.

On board the NRS raft is my partner Tara Smith and our old best friend Anna Withrow(she moved away). These gals were the powerhouse of the craft. You wouldn’t be seeing these accompanying photos had they not let me ride princess from put-in to take-out. As much as I love paddling, capturing this day with the Nikon added so much fun to the experience and memories that would have been left in a drunken blurr… putting my weight in the nose of the boat we managed to stay afloat.

…and to no surprise, we bumped into many friends on the water that day.

We had one potential flip at dimple but we cruised it smoothly thanks to Anna’s guiding. We stopped at swimmers to play for a bit. It’s a safe place to surf your craft or simply jump into the current and take a ride. With the camera strap wrapped around my wrist, I waded out to a shallow spot and photographed the paddlers coming through. They say Kodak courage brings out the rock star in all of us, and I think today that held true.

As the sun dipped behind the mountains we reached the take-out. Given I had “taken the day off” from the hard parts, I continued to photograph the gals as they deflated the boat. Many jokes were made about this, but being the empowered women that they are, they had it in the bag 😉

To end the day and fill the stomach’s we made our way to Table 9 in Morgantown. With a packed house and no available seating, one unlucky table never showed, so we got their reserved seating on the deck. To our surprise fireworks began to shoot off over the Mon river within moments of our arrival. Couldn’t have planned it better if we tried.