Just past Ferris Hill Road, the rail trail is always swampy as it's near the headwaters of the East Branch Delaware River.

There were several to be spotted along the Catskill Scenic Trail with tons of golden rod and purple flowers on their early autumn day.

This evening I got my truck intertube I bought last week out on the Jessup River. I haven't floated in one of them in 25 years... Great fun! Though I think next time I use it I'll bring a full kayak paddle not a half paddle. Or just use my hands, which worked fine. 

Something about the old fashioned rubber intertube - that brought me back to being a little kid when either my grandfather got me one or maybe it was my parents had from the 1970s. It's just such a throw back to a different era - it could have easily been 1951, laying on that rubber tube, looking up at the trees and the darkening skies, gently floating down the river.

Now I get that they sell modern swimming tubes on Amazon or at Wally World, the kind with handles and drink holders,  painted bright colors of your favorite sports team or with penguins on it. But nothing beats the feeling of an old fashioned truck semi intertube. The light smell of the rubber and its warmth of the black rubber, the feeling it has you lay on it, and even the metal valve stem even if you lean over too far.

Maybe it's just nostalgia. But it's fun laying back in the water, floating down the stream like one might have done 70 years ago.