Finished

Well, we finished the Verde River Guide project today.  All-in-all, it took 3 months.  Good thing we had three months to spare.  We started discussing this with Chip N. way back in January.  I think we laid our hands on that GPS on January 19th and did our first trip January 28.  The other trips were February 7 and 15th and then the last one on March 30.  We spent about six hours today gathering all of the digital data files together, posting photo albums, writing captions, converting Garmin GPS data to Google Earth and ArcView Gis files, and on and on and on.  Finally, we burned all the data to some CD's to give to Chip.  It's done.  Finished.
Now Chip has a grant-funded budget of a little less than $10,000 to create the final product(s).  THANKS, CHIP, for making this project happen.  Good Luck with the remainder of it. Also, THANKS, BOB R. for helping Chip get it all together and feng shui.

It was a great project.  First, we got to spend four high quality days with Joshua on the river.  He went from having no clue about what a canoe does to becoming a very proficient paddler.  He went from a Space Cadet with his stuff to a Space Commander.  He now even uses a real checklist both before and after each trip.  He was a real fast learner and a joy to paddle with.  THANKS, JOSHUA, "ya dun good."  Remember: "Read 'em and run 'em."

Suzi's Shuttle Service was outstanding.  Her willingness to drop everything on her busy schedule to help us out was truly a gift.  Without her cheerful, totally on-time shuttles, we simply couldn't have pulled off this project.  THANKS, SUSUN!  Your service with a smile was totally AWESOME!

When Susun was in Hawaii, Goatherder came through in the clutch to run a key shuttle.  Without his help, this project would have stumbled badly and probably wouldn't be complete even yet today.  THANKS, GH, that day was really fun.

Kudos also go to Arizona State Parks for letting us beat the living daylights out of their canoe.  And a Big Thanks to Jodi A. of the Verde NRCD for helping us have real life jackets, helmets and a dry bag, too.  Without Parks and the NRCD, we would have literally been up the creek without a paddle.

One related benefit of the project was getting real up close and personal with the Garmin GPS unit.  Frankly, I've had a bad attitude about Garmin because of their proprietary mapping system.  Garmin has made it near impossible to translate their data files into something usable on other people's software and platforms.  Well, luck and Hoosier hard-headed-ness turned the corner with Garmin on this project.  As you recall, I like the unit so much we went and paid $200 for one of our own.  It's a sweet unit that's going to serve us well for many years to come.  We're are delighted this river project delivered such a great spin-off gift.

It's great to wrap up this project today with no loose ends remaining.  It sure came right down to the wire.
Now it's time to move on to the next volunteer project.  Who knows what that will be?  It's gonna be fun finding out.

You can click here to review all the stuff about the project on the Verde River Guide blog.

Have a great day, Happy Trails & Cheers!  jp