I had a capade on Saturday.
First, I ran 9 miles. All kinds of it-took-forever, but no records made on this day. Still. 9 miles. Shrug I may, but it’s not something to sniff at.
And then it was time to prepare for our outing. We had an hour to get ready, before a friend was showing up to get a ride with us. David was in the shower when the doorbell rang. I answered the door with no pants on, and that’s after making her wait about 90 seconds longer than is normal for door answering. Suffice it to say, we weren’t entirely ready and there was a bit of a scramble.
We drove out to a vineyard, met up with 2 more of the ensemble cast and drank a bottle of wine.
And then to Lucky’s supermarket to meet up with the remaining cast and crew, where we procured 3 different bags of Ruffles, more wine and sandwiches for all.
We are ready!
Destination: Russian River
Purpose: To canoe down it
The canoe people make us sign away our lives. They give us some waterproof bags. They drive us away to some location up river.
At said location, a dude tells us some how-to’s and do-nots. I half way listen. We clamber into 4 canoes, 3 with 2 people and 1 with 3 people. I volunteer to be the steerer and sit in the back of my and David’s canoe. We head out.
The very first little bit is a narrow part with some pretty quick moving water. The How-To dude told us to stay away from the shore in that part. Which is what we immediately did not do.
Straight for the shoreline and its trees we went. My steering prowess had no effect.
How-To dude also told us to duck forward under tree branches, not back. I, of course, leaned back under them.
We proceeded to be stuck in the trees, with too many branches to go forward and a current far too fast to try and paddle backwards. And then, for no reason in particular, we just tipped out and the canoe started to fill with water.
We’ve been in the boat for probably about 90 seconds and already we are fail!
Also fail? Those waterproof bags. I bet they probably work just fine, but really only if you close them up. Which we did not. Consequently, 3 sandwiches and 2 iPhones became sodden. The Ruffles potato chips were fine.
After that, we were pretty golden. No more tipping. For us, anyway. 2 of the other canoe friends tipped later, but our tipping was the most awesome.
Also, despite wearing 85 SPF sunblock (yes, 85!), I got sunburned. Not horribly, but enough. But man, if I’m going to get sunburned, could I at least do so in such a way as to even out some of the stupid-ass tan lines from my last bout, puh-lease? Somehow, I managed to reinforce my freckly arms and chest, without evening out the bits at the tops of my shoulders. Next time, I am totally just going nekkid.
margaret edith 