Where's The New River?

The one I'm talking about runs vaguely north of the Santa Fe and is considered a tributary of it. I've lived 19 miles south of this river for  22 years without even knowing about it, so it was a new river for me. Union and Bradford locals sure know about, though, because they leave their water bottles, beer cans (Natty Light? Really?), and mutilated chunks of styrofoam as markers of their existence. They also leave nylon strings with now-rusty fishing hooks hanging from every horizontal branch on the river. One snagged my jacket so abruptly it stopped my kayak.

None of this detracts, strangely enough, from the sense that this is a hidden, stark, and lovely river with exposed bluffs and overhanging branches likes giant spider webs. So close to the Santa Fe, this river looks nothing like it, at least to these eyes. It's wider, clearer, and its banks more accessible (hence the debris). About 2 miles downriver, I decided to turn around: this is a river I want to share with someone else, and I will bring a trash bag.

In one of those revelations that come to us as something utterly new, but seem so obvious later, I realized on this river that my love for wild places, outside places--which has, as I've gotten older, morphed into a dedicated obsession--comes from my father who taught me to paddle, camp, hike, and sleep with the windows open to hear the crickets and the roosters. Because of him I know what it's like to sleep under a tin roof in a rain storm, something every human being should experience. Whenever I find myself in the middle of nowhere (like hiking deep in a damp, mossy forest in British Columbia or carrying my son down the Narrows of Zion National Park) he is right there with me.  Thanks Daddy.  I love you.