Kettletown

 The first mile and a half downriver from the put in was excellent.  There was no lake shore development other than a town park, no houses, no riverside roads, no traffic noise.  It is surprisingly quiet, until I think about the circuitous route of two lane roads that I drive to get here...basic New England road system - no grid, no straight lines, and only half of the necessary signage.  The river is hemmed in, a deep valley with eastern hardwood forest on the hillsides.  I heard my canoe gurgling, and stopped and backed up a foot.  A yellowed elm leaf drifted away and slowly sank.  It takes almost nothing to disturb the smooth flow over the canoe's hull.

I realized that I had not paddled down from this put in to the next dam downstream.  In fact, I had only started here once and on that trip I paddled upstream, got discouraged by the junk shoreline development and hadn't bothered to return.  This time I head downstream.  

I spot a few Great Blue Herons and maybe three dozen Mallards and a single Osprey.  There's no marsh land or shallows to speak of and as this is a reservoir behind a hundred feet of dam, the hillsides just plunge down into the water.  Good paddling but not great for bird watching.

After a mile and a half I turn a big bend and start seeing lakeside houses.  It's not jam packed and mostly little neighborhoods of six or ten houses.  The boat traffic is limited to a few fishermen and since they just sit most of the time, they are easily filtered out.

 I cross the river just above the dam and head back on the far shore.