The river saga began when Kenneth Caplinger dropped off the father-and-son team at Mayfield McCraw’s ranch north of Bonham. It wasn’t long before a man on the river’s edge waved for them to pull over to the shore. “He reminded me of the time that, back in 1957, Roy Rogers bought into a Denison boat company and was going to make a long promotional trip down Red River in a large boat. Some friends and I skipped school and sat on the river bank waiting for Roy Rogers. For some reason, Rogers’ trip ended abruptly after a very short trip downstream. Mr. Sample said he sat on the river bank for two days just waiting to see Roy Rogers come by before he finally gave up.” The pair of campers were awakened one morning at 3:00 a.m. by a wall of thunder that came rolling down the river, followed by a torrential downpour. Three inches of rain fell in an hour, and finally forced Dean out into the storm to survey the mounting damage. The limb their boat was tied to was now underwater and a waist-high bluff that had served as a table the night before was precariously close to collapsing into the rapidly rising water. Dean secured the boat, grabbed their gear off of the dissolving bluff, and then raced back to the tent. Better to be wet and have a boat, he told himself, than dry and on foot come daybreak. A good pair of binoculars helped them spot the main current on a tricky stretch of river between Highway 271 and Highway 259. There the river would divide and wander in narrow channels around countless sandbars, with some of the channels turning into dead ends while some led out of the maze. Dean credits his son’s attentiveness with their relatively easy passage through this phase of the journey. For the biggest part of the journey, good planning resulted in an enjoyable father and son outing on a river that is North Texas’ equivalent to the mighty Mississippi. All the way down Red River the pair were told over and over, “You know, I’ve always wanted to take a long trip on Big Red, but I just never managed to pull it off.” Dean could smile knowingly; that was the same conversation he had with his father many years ago.