We went canoeing!!

I know I said I would post tips for traveling with kids in my next post, but I’m going to have to do that later. I’m just so excited over our Memorial day weekend that I really had to post about it first.
We had a reunion of sorts with hubby’s friends from college. They were meeting after about 16 years. We met each other’s families and got to know each other on Friday. On Saturday, we decided to go canoeing on the Fox River up in Wisconsin. It’s about an hour’s drive from where we live. We had a picnic lunch and set off in four canoes. Initially, a 7.5-mile canoe trip didn't seem to be hard at all!! It was a beautiful, scenic trip through the wilderness and we loved it.There was a slight breeze and the trees swayed and danced around us. We could hear little critters in the bushes along the shore and we spotted lots of different birds. We couldn't capture any on them in our camera though. Like I said, it was idyllic. And then things started happening.... In a while, we realized that 7.5 miles on water seems much farther than that on road!!


At one point we got separated from the rest of our group. We were wondering what happened when we felt strong winds blowing and the canoe was being pushed around and in the wrong direction..upstream! We fought hard to keep going in the right direction. When we realized we had left our group way behind and it was starting to get dark, we decided to go ahead and send someone to get them.


We made it back to shore at about 6.45 pm. While we were still paddling back, we saw the people who had rented us the canoes coming in our direction in their motorboat and we asked them to please find the rest of our group. Another couple followed close behind us and made it back at about 7.15. The other two canoes actually floated back in style, being towed by the motor boat! They had their feet up in the canoe and were busy taking pictures.


We later learned that a storm was passing through and hence the winds! I think there’s something up with us and the storms! (Remember our return trip from Arizona?)We also learned that one of the canoes in our group, got stuck at one point because of the winds and they completely lost sense of direction and started moving the wrong way. They met up with the other canoe after a while and realized they were going back to where we started from!! They were relieved when the motorboat pulled up and towed them back.
Despite the little hitches, we all had a pretty good time and a good laugh about the whole adventure. We picked up dinner on the way and could barely eat with our aching muscles. Nevertheless, we did eat well and came back home. I provided everyone with motrin..being the good hostess that I am and hubby got some wonderful coffee for all of us and that kept us going well past midnight, playing games and talking about everything and nothing!
The next day we went to downtown Chicago, but ah, that’s another post. Don’t want to bore you all at once…