Kelley saw many of you river folks recently at a memorial gathering for our friend Lars, on the banks of the American River. Was great to see such an incredible gathering of the river community, and sad and powerful to hear and share stories of our friend Lars. It was also great to keep looking over at Kelley and see her surrounded and visiting with so many of you. Her life is currently very isolated in some ways, and she misses the river and its community tremendously. Hopefully now that she is driving she can get out more. Thats right, Kelley drove up in her "accessible" van from Sacramento, and picked Julie, Lisa and I up in Coloma, and drove us up to Chili Bar for the memorial. It was her first big outing in the van, and it was only after I got out and really started looking at the hand controls, that I really realized that naviagating the steep curvey descent down to Chili Bar, is a bit more challenging with that set up, then regular cars. The gas and brake are on the steering wheel. But she did great (of course).

So unfortunately our San Juan River Trip fundraiser had to be cancelled, (lack of sign-ups) so am working on other local options instead. Keep tuned, next blog will hopefully announce dates for South Fork American, Tuolumne, and Rogue River fundraising raft trips. Finances are tight,and would like to try and keep that from getting in the way of Kelley's progress. Kelley is still making hard fought progress,with the amazing Sean. I asked Kelley to send me this letter she got from Sean, after she had had a particularly bad day fighting nerve pain, so she could do some physical therapy with him. Their work together is hard, painful... and beautiful....

"Hi Kelley,

Here are some photos just were taken after the big pain during the whole hard day, I don't think it's a bad day, it is still a recovering day and developing day.

Remember, we are making a miracle!

Don't worry about the money, it would not stop the miracle.
Don't worry about how fast or how slow it is, it's not our business, it's God's business. Our business is Keep going, going and going, never stop!
Please clear your mind, concentrate on it!

What is miracle? there are many ways to explain. one way is below.

it would not happen today, many people stop at today;
it would not happen tomorrow, many people stop at tomorrow;
it would not happen next week, many people stop at the week;
it would not happen next month, many people stop at the month;
it would not happen next year, many people stop at the year;
it would not happen in the time people expect;
it would happen when people completely forget ask the time, only concentrating the hard work, ....

See you tomorrow,
Sean"