When writers meet, a topic often pops up that intrigues me. Someone will mention an incident that makes such a salient point that the experience appears far too perfect to be true. Most writers feel reluctant to use these phony-sounding anecdotes, but as our courage builds through the years, we eventually write the story, because it’s too good for proving an axiom.

MONMOUTH — Jeri Kahl doesn’t belong to any birding organizations. And Midge Burns doesn’t consider herself a birder. But both women are loon experts on their respective big-loon lakes.

A lazy canoe or kayak float on an August river or large stream has everything to recommend it to average canoeists — sense of adventure, exercise, scenery, fishing, wildlife sightings and far more. River trips often inconvenience paddlers, though, because paddling from a put-in to take-out spot may require putting one vehicle at the beginning of the river stretch and another at the end — the old two-vehicle shuffle.