Hi Ho, Hi Ho, to the River We Go

Hello, all. I have unenthusiastically joined the world of the working again. . .[blech] I'll do my best to fill you in on all the fun we had on our mini-vacation, but the paying gig might slow things down a bit. (I know you're all on the edge of your seat, so I'll do my best to keep you informed.) : )

Kevin and I have always enjoyed outdoorsy stuff. I grew up on horses. He grew up running wild on the creek near his house. . .and then there's all that hunting and fishing stuff he enjoys. When we started dating in high school, we just kinda fell into floating (literally). It was fun and we both enjoyed it. We'd grab a canoe, an ice chest, a bit of sandwich stuff, and in those days, beer, and head out. The motto was something like, "If you don't tip, it ain't fun."

Things have changed since then. Now, days on the river number 2 on a good year. . .Two days of packing later, we had enough supplies, clothes, and food for the two big people, Kyler, and Kevin's dog, Maddie. (Kady is still too little, so she spent the weekend with MooMoo.) The beer is long gone, and tipping the canoe is no longer fun.

Once upon a time, Kevin had his own canoe. The canoe had an unfortunate run-in with a fence post during a storm, so we were to borrow Kevin's brother's canoe. This is where it gets confusing. Kevin's brother had loaned it to his brother-in-law, who had managed to knock a hole in that canoe. The word we got was that it was patched and ready for us to go get it at the brother-in-law's house, except that when Kevin called, it wasn't. It still had a hole and the brother-in-law wanted to know how early we were coming to get the canoe on Saturday. Um, we needed to be on the river Saturday; we wanted to get the canoe Friday. All that to tell you that we hit the river with the canoe the brother-in-law borrowed from "Heath." We're not sure who Heath is or even if he knew we were borrowing the canoe. Luckily, we didn't sink the canoe, and no sheriff's deputies awaited Kevin when he returned the canoe.

We headed out EARLY Saturday morning looking for a campsite. This family doesn't do early well, but we were excited. All of the campsites on the upper Buffalo are first-come-first-served, so there was no way to reserve a campsite. This had me more than a little nervous. I just knew I would have to load everything back up and carry it home--especially after the first campground was full. I spent a good 30 minutes trying to be very zen-like. I kept telling myself that it would all be ok. God has a plan, and all would work out according to His plan.

We got a campsite. It was the last available site at Erbie. All was well with the world, and God was good. (God IS good, but you get my point.) Anyway, Saturday at 10:30 or so, we finally hit the river. That post is filled with pics (and much shorter) and will (hopefully) appear tomorrow.