Messing with Morgan: A how-to guide

Morgan Jenkins is a great pal. He taught me to row a boat and convinced Penny and Paul to give me a job as a river guide during a downswing in my employment arc after I threw in the towel on being a newspaper reporter and wasn't exactly sure how the next round of bills were going to be paid.

He may regret that kind deed. And Paul and Penny may have revised their hiring protocols since, but let's stay on track here.

Mo and I have logged some river miles between then and now and river guiding has been a great way to see some of this country I moved out here to see.

Also, I'm sometimes mean to Morgan just because it's funny. For me, I mean. Here's some time-lapse photography from the other day when we're driving out of Dug Bar and stopped to soak in the view looking down on the Imnaha Canyon.

Mojo is fond of Shuttle Monkey, a stuffed animal with bendy appendages that rides along in the Winding Waters truck on all driving missions. I don't know why, but Morgan insists on it and he's attached to the thing. So on this day Morgan thought it would be nice to have a picture taken of us two buddies in front of this great view -- and Shuttle Monkey should be in the picture too.

So I asked if I could hold Shuttle Monkey and Morgan didn't like the idea but I persisted and then threw his stuffed animal out toward the prickly pear cactus behind us. I really am kind of an arsehole. Totally uncalled for but I got a great deal of enjoyment out of the thing and here are the stages of Morgan's disbelief. Priceless.

There's even a video featuring Shuttle Monkey over on the Winding Waters Gearboat Chronicles site. Watch it here. Sorry Mo.

You can't see it, but Morgan has a look of disgust on his face.

OK, now you can see it.

After, "Why would you do that?" and "I'm sorry, it'll never happen again," we patched things up.