Adventure is out there!

Today I went on a pretty exciting adventure, Sara and I went kayaking down a river.  The last time Sara and I had gone kayaking we had discovered a nest of earwigs in my kayak, so this time we decided to clean out the kayaks with a hose.  This left the seats of the kayaks sopping wet, especially in Sara’s kayak.

We arrived at the river with the kayaks in tow.  The first kayak we carried along the path in the park to the boat launch.  This was long and tedious and there was a man who looked like he might be a zombie in our way.  So with the next kayak we just cut straight across through the flower garden and pushed the kayak down the hill.  Oh, how I love gravity sometimes..  

Once we had successfully gotten into the kayaks we began our journey.  It started by going down the small rapids in the river.  I have never gone kayaking down any rapids ever so it was quite the experience, but I feel that I did well.  Sara, on the other hand, did not.  She somehow managed to get turned around and went over the last little waterfall backwards.  Other than being a bit shallow, that river was perfect, there was enough of a current and obstacles to make it interesting, but not too many to make it difficult either.  Also, although there were plenty of water bugs, there were no mosquitoes which I was thrilled about.

I knew that the farther we went down the river, the farther we would have to go back to get to the car, but hadn’t planned exactly how we would do this.  I figured it would just happen somehow.  Big mistake on my part, but this is where the real part of the adventure began. I wanted to go back, but I knew that neither of us had the strength to paddle back up those mini waterfalls and rapids so we had no choice but to continue on down the river.  After about a mile after I had wanted to turn around we finally came upon a bridge that crossed over the river.  We had wanted to stop at such a place, leave the kayaks, and return with the car; but there was a creepy man at the bank who was staring us down.  So we continued on.  About another mile up the river I decided that we probably weren’t going to find another bridge anytime soon and I could hear the sounds of cars nearby.  So I pulled my kayak out of the river and climbed up the nearby hill to try to find the road.  Let me quickly note that the hill was covered in beautiful, healthy poison ivy, locust trees (which are covered in thorns), and broken beer bottles.  Oh, and did I mention I went up this hill barefoot?

Sara and I ended up having to temporarily abandon the kayaks and walk up the road to try to find the town in which the van was parked.  We must have looked absolutely ridiculous bursting out of the woods and walking down the road; I had mud caked on my calves and, since we had hosed down the kayaks earlier, Sara had a wet bottom which she was painfully self conscious about.  We did end up finding the car after walking a couple of miles through downtown and getting plenty of strange looks from people who probably thought we were hobos.

Once we had stopped at a gas station and washed off our legs in the sink, we got  in the van and called my dad.  Dad came and single handedly carried both of the kayaks up the hill at the same time, thank you dad.  

I found this adventure to be exciting and would gladly go kayaking down the same river again tomorrow, after planning it much more carefully.  But I think Sara will never trust my spur-of-the-moment ideas ever again, which some might consider a wise decision on her part.  If you want to go kayaking down a river here are the tips I have for you. Plan everything ahead of time: who will have their phone on them in case of emergency, who will drive, how you will get back to the car, how many geese you hope to terrorize, you get the picture.  Also if you discover that you are in the middle of a large and healthy patch of poison ivy, do not fall into despair.  If you wash the part of you that came into contact with the poison ivy fast enough you might be able to wash off the oil of the poison ivy plant before it soaks into your skin and causes all the annoying itching.

I hope you enjoyed this story and learned something from it.  You’ll probably be hearing from me again soon.  I hope that every single one of your days until then is full of good times, good people, and good food.