Canoeing

At the present, I have a huge black bruise on my right hip. It is a bit painful to sit. This bruise is my badge of honor and remembrance for the family's last summer fling - canoeing down a river.

I have done this before a few times, but never with my children in tow. The boys have experienced a canoe on a lake, not on flowing water. As for Nathan, well, he didn't take his fishing pole. So, for all of us there was something new. The word adventure floated through my brain Thursday on the drive to the Guadalupe.

Our adventure had many rocky parts, but the figurative rockiness began immediately. Where Nathan had decided to put in was not navigable and so we headed disgruntedly to a new location where there were more tourists, and I was afraid less nature to awe the kids.

We finally situated ourselves carefully in our canoe almost two hours later and began to paddle down stream in the midst of many other people tubing and floating the river. Soon we broke free of the tubing tourists and were basically alone. Out ahead, I saw some rapids and began to straighten up and told Nathan to get ready. I knew we could handle it. Visions of happily screaming boys, of a family working the rapids together and bonding all the way sped through my mind.

But for some reason, when we did get to the rushing water, the canoe went to the side and the water beat against the largest part of the canoe, and pushed it onto its side. When we tipped, my hip and leg got the brunt of the collision with the rocks below, but I was able to stand up fairly quickly. I was laughing at the unfortunate event and looked around at my family to see if they were sharing in the exhileration of our first real adventure. I, however, was the only one laughing. Isaac was crying while holding a scraped finger. Aaron was holding onto the edge of the overturned canoe looking stunned . Nathan was scowling at me like I tipped the canoe on purpose. We got the boys back in the canoe and then pulled it out of the rapids with the help of some people fishing from the bank. All was well, and I thought everyone would soon find the whole thing great fun. I was wrong. 15 minutes later, Isaac is still crying, Nathan is being plain surly and Aaron wanted to go home.

Finally 15 minutes or so down the river we found a sandy area to take a break and eat. The pained fingers and bruised legs and egos were soon forgotten as the boys and Nathan climbed rocks and looked at little fish swimming in the river. We were having fun again, and that made me happy.

We finished our short excursion down the river. I am ready to go back and to do it all over again. The boys are leaning more towards riding on motor boats, but I am sure that as they grow they will always remember our first canoe trip.