Family night on the Little Blue River

After work I tossed a canoe on the truck, stuck a turkey ham, some water, cheese sticks and a juice box in the cooler and got ready for a evening canoe trip. The last 2 times we have gone to the little blue the water has been a bit too low for great canoeing. We had some floods 2 days ago and decided the water would be up a bunch.

We were right. The boat ramp was coated in 4ish inches of slick slimy mud.

We managed to carry the canoe and our gear down without falling though and soon enough we were on the river. Like usual we were starving and did not canoe far before getting to a great dinner spot. Peanut got out his little boat and started to play.

We quickly realized we had no lighter so Berry and I ran back to the truck to look for one.

Surprisingly there was no lighter there. I considered trying to spark something with the battery and carry it back but decided to eat the stuff we didn’t need to cook then eat something on the way home.

So we ate most of a bag of cheddar rice cakes, 2 apples and 3 string cheese sticks. Peanut also had his juice box and Heath and I drank a bottle of water. This did the trick and after a bit of swimming we paddled up the stream. It was tough going and we paddled like crazy for a while to move against the current. The current was getting faster and crazier as we went so we picked a point to paddle to then turned around. If it had been just Heath and I we would have kept going but we were worried about Peanut tipping and poor Berry.

He does not like to ride in the canoe and prefers to run along the shore or swim along besides us. Well many spots were way to fast and would wash him down stream. Also the water was high and he had tough times finding shore he could run along w/ out falling in.

I worried about him a few times and swam over to where he was to help him get across a strong current. Once we had turned around we went over a large log after a strong spot and Berry tried to follow us. He kinda got stuck on the log w/ the current pushing him and I worried he would be pulled under or something. I hopped out of the canoe in a spot with no current to go help him but he was over the log and swimming toward me as soon as i was out of the canoe. So I tossed him in the canoe to see if he was ready for a break and then tried to hop in myself.

Well 3 people, a dog, a cooler, and a bunch of water was too much and as I tried to get in I dumped Peanut and Heath out. Peanut immediately got pointed upstream and started kicking. I grabbed him and made sure we didn’t loose everything then we all laughed at Berry alone in the canoe. He got out and we decided it would be more fun to swim back down stream a ways while the current was not bad.

Heath took a picture of the boys floating down the river.

Well going back was pretty qucik and the only hard part was getting the wet canoe up the slippery boat ramp.

We took the long way back along the windy and wooded blue river road and stopped at McDonald’s for a Big Mac.

Peanut and I sat down and shared the burger.

He was confused by the large burger at first but once I showed him the 2 all beef patties, special sauce lettuce and cheese he got it and took a bite.

Then Peanut and I took showers and Heath ran to the grocery store to get supplies for her weekend canoe trip. Peanut and I read a book about 3 kittens then watched a bit of tv before bed. I packed for my bachelor party this weekend then Jon, Tony and Amanda showed up.

Heath got home shortly behind them and we went downstairs to watch Jon and Amanda’s presentation on the wedding party introduction for the wedding. They had beat mixed some songs together and drawn out a large diagram on some cardboard.

Stooks got us some beers and we hung out and talked about the upcoming weekend. I had dyed my strap all day so took it out and washed it and once all the dye was rinsed off it was still pink.

Ohh well

We went to bed after that and got a good night of sleep in preparation of a great weekend.