The ancient game of curling goes back to the 1500’s and is played by 4-man teams using “stones” and “brooms”. Each stone weighs about 40 pounds and costs about $500. Players push the stones over ice to a desired target 78 feet away. The brooms are used to scrub the ice and make the stone slide farther and straighter on the ice. There is a lot of strategy on how and where you place your stone in relation to the scoring target and your opponent’s stones. Curling has been described as something between shuffleboard and chess.

On Saturday, January 9th, 7 members of Champaign Ski Club participated in the Ski Kounsel of Illinois (SKI) sponsored event which also included members of Bloomington, Peoria, River City and Springfield Ski Clubs. Champaign was represented by Tony & Deb Curcio, Randy & Judy Haydel, Chris Haydel, John Gentry and Mark Andrews. The event was at the Waltham Curling Club in Triumph, Illinois dubbed the oldest curling club in Illinois.

Last Saturday, six of us paddled the Middle Fork River from just North of the Middle Fork River Forest Preserve to Paul Tenczar's farm near Armstrong, a trip of just over ten river miles. Present were Randy and Judy Haydel, Joyce Goggin, John Gentry, Richard McClary and myself.  We had heard of the river otters that Paul had in his pond, and were hoping to get a look. I had heard that there were otters on The Middle Fork but had never seen any. Seems like everyone had seen otters except me. We had not gone a mile and suddenly there were four otters running along the bank just above the water headed our way. Upon seeing me they dove into the water. I thought that was it, but they appeared beside us partially hiding themselves behind some tree roots. They were amazing bobbing up and down in the water,  taking a few seconds to look at us and giving us their short sharp barks no doubt telling us to get off of their river. We continued on enjoying a beautiful day with the temp near seventy and sunny. We had to portage around one log spanning the river except for Judy who managed somehow to squeeze underneath. One other small log jam was portaged and we stopped for lunch. Within a mile of going on, Judy and I were entertained four times by something splashing the water around our boats. At first I thought beaver as I have had them do this before. But it turned out to be another otter who followed us for about fifty yards, hiding behind tree roots and barking at us. Most of this section of river was twisty with good current and would have been enjoyable by itself. But the otters definately made our day much more fun. I had not paddled this section in over twenty years and am so glad we did it.  Join us next year because we will surely do it again. Also, if we continue to have such great weather, I will continue to run paddling trips, bike rides and hikes. If we get some snow this winter, several of us cross country ski too. If you would like to try this sport without investing in it yet, call me as I have several sets of skis, poles and boots that I will happily lend you. Come join us in the great outdoors. We truly are a year round club.

Editors note:  the otters are about four feet long and weigh about 30 pounds each.  The photo comes from Tenczar's pond.