Flip.

Sunday afternoon I learned a valuable lesson, a full canoe, is easily tipped.

We've been planning to spend a day on the river for a while, but it always seems to get pushed to the back burner of weekend ideas. We had no plans for Sunday afternoon, so it seemed like a good day fulfill our river dreams. Every time we camp the kids always eye the passing Canoers with envy..so we  booked 1 canoe & 1 tube (as only 4/Canoe is allowed & off we went. Of course since there was only 1 tube, all the mini's only wanted to tube...so we had to switch out every 30 minutes or so. We packed some drinks & towels & made several stops along the "beaches" of the river along the way. Of course, being a beautiful day, the nicer shore areas were very crowded. The kids had a blast swimming with the other kiddo's in these spots & even did some minor cliff jumping.

It was a perfect day to be out on the water and mostly we traveled along the river without incident. Though we passed several other Canoers in all sorts of states of disarray (some purposeful I'm sure...like the "rednecks" Annabelle loudly pointed out) but we'd had an unbelievablely smooth ride. We actually made several comments as to how quiet & peaceful it was....which was probably our first mistake.  We'd chosen the shortest available trip, the 4 mile as it was late in the afternoon when we got started & wanted to be sure we had plenty of time to get home & cleaned up before it got dark.  When approaching the last mile of the river, the river splits...left is the more "stumpy" thus rougher direction & right being the more smooth ride...or so we were told. Though me & John had been taunting the kids that we would DEFINITELY do the left side to get in some real adventure to our trip we steered our faithful canoe to the right. H   orse Flies apparently hang out in this area to get a good laugh. Almost immediately we noticed a Horse Fly buzzing around...and unfortunatley for us, these sound a lot like bees...and they bite/sting like bees...and Gavin, well he hates bees. Once terror was vocalized, Heaven & Gavin slowly began to lose it. Annabelle, who was enjoying her time in the tube, mostly kept her cool. In the midst of Horse Fly chaos...we approached a rather stumpy area. While naviagating the stumpy area, 1 Horse Fly became 2 Horse Flies...which created chaos....which caused multiple children to thrash about....which...caused our canoe to flip compeletly over. Shoes, Coolers, Clothes, Soda Cans & Children...were everywhere. While the Mini's scrambled to collect items & get themselves to shore (luckily it was very shallow) me & John went to work on getting the Canoe out of the creek.  As it didn't flip completly over, it was now filled to the brim with water & we had to push it against the current & the stumps as well to get it unstuck. It was a testing 20 minutes in our marriage to say the least. When our canoe was mostly water free, we assest our losses....3 shoes (One each of mine, Gavin & Johns), several sodas, & no more dry towels. It could have been much worse. We managed to find one of John's shoes in a somewhat suspiciously snakey looking area not far down the creek but mine & Gavin's are forever lost I fear. Needless to say, the remainer of our trip, was uneventful in comparison.

Goodbye Adventure shoe, you were my one half of my favorite pair. You have traveled with me loayally for many years. You carried me safely & comfortably thru Hogwarts, the beautiful beaches of Belieze & even the filthy streets of New Orleans with never so much as a bilster.
I suppose it's only suiting that we be parted in a river adventure....it was fun while it lasted.