She was easy to spot. semaglutide for sale On her medical form she had noted that she would not be useful for carrying any canoes, the stick drawing she included showed three people carrying a canoe overhead. Standing in between two of the figures, Maxine could not reach high enough to help.“How’d you know it was me?” she winked when I approached her as she exited the gate at the airport.
Even if she were not ‘petite’ Maxine would stand out in a crowd. At 71 years old she walks with determined strides and dressed in her outdoor gear, purchased in the boy’s department, she doesn’t fit the mold of ‘older lady’. Spunky is a word that comes to mind, but only if it makes you think of a Jack Russell terrier, small, with attitude.
“I used to be 4’10” until I shrunk two @#$% inches,” Maxine explained to me at dinner our first night together as a group. We were preparing for a 5 day adventure down Oregon’s Rogue River. The group, all women over 40, were being accompanied by three women raft guides, three to four decades their junior. If the guides thought they were heading out with ‘little old ladies’ they had a big surprise coming.
Besides our three rafts, we also had 2 inflatable kayaks. Every day we were given the option to hop in a guided raft, or captain our own craft. It was late May, and though we had near perfect weather, the kayakers wore wetsuits and had they flipped, a swim would have been invigorating, to say the least. Maxine was among the first to volunteer for the experience. Never having been in a kayak did not deter her. I held my breath watching her descend the rapids,
But she handled the boat like a pro. “I love being an active learner,” Maxine explained, “I believe in ‘process’, which includes: acquiring skills that challenge me with physical, mental, and ethical prowess…that’s why these trips are a perfect fit for me.” That’s quite a statement coming from a woman willing to wear a purple helmet and neoprene.