We're after the same rainbow's end...

Frank Sinatra, Audrey Hepburn, Andy Williams and me...we all love the Moon River.  My Moon River is located in a little northern Ontario town called Bala. There isn't a prettier sight in the world than the view from the Bala bridge in the evening, watching the sun drop into the waters and the sky light up with a rainbow of reflected colour.

The big Lake Muskoka empties its flow into the Moon River and it continues flowing on downstream to Georgian Bay.  In Bala the water squeezes into a narrow, rock filled river and drops down a steep hill.  The rapids swirl over massive granite rocks churning and whirling as the water rushes off to the western sky.

The song Moon River was a collaboration by Henry Mancini and Johnny Mercer.  It received an Academy Award for Best Original Song when it was performed by Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961).  Sinatra performed it, and Williams made it famous in 1962.  

In the evenings, I used to live in my little bunk, set overtop of a cupboard in a room that I shared with all six members of my family at our summer cottage in Muskoka, listening to the warm melody and heartwarming words on the crackling radio that the grown ups listened to while we children tried to drift off to sleep. 

"Moon river, wider than a mile,
I'm crossing you in style some day.
Oh, dream maker, you heart breaker,
Wherever you're goin', I'm goin' your way.

Two drifters, off to see the world,
There's such a lot of world to see.
We're after the same rainbow's end, waitin' round the bend,
My huckleberry friend, Moon River, and me.