Unless you happen to have the misfortune of having to vacation with Walter! :) You know there has to be some adventure and new lessons learned in every camping trip....
So here we were entering the Boundary Waters in Upper Minnesota. A beautiful area of gorgeous lakes and great wildlife. Looks like we are having a great time eh????
Do you notice in that last picture how the waves seem to be bigger???? For those of you that don't get out to enjoy nature much, that means that the wind is picking up. Doesn't look that bad some of you may say, but when you mix strong gusty winds coming at you, waves on a large open lake and (the killer) small children in the front of the canoe (meaning all the weight and rowing strength is in the back of the canoe), it spells disaster! :)
So after enjoying lunch on an island, we headed back to the dock. Walter had Joe and Katie (and the map) and I had Nick and Maddy. The kids and I take off to the other side of the lake going across the wind. With Nick and Maddy's awesome paddling we make it. Shortly after Walter makes it as well. I then verify where we are going and take off. Walter (who can paddle harder than I can) gets ahead of us and then proceeds to head back across the lake we just paddled across. Without the map and cursing him because I have no idea where he is going we start to follow. When we got close enough to shout where on earth is he going (that is the edited version...) I find out that the wind just carried him over there and we needed to keep heading into the wind.
Do you have any idea what happens to a canoe that is lighter in the front and doesn't have any paddling strength up front when heading into a wind??? It spins backwards - over and over and over again - and then when you paddle to turn it the right way again, you find yourself further from your destination since the wind carried you backwards during the whole fiasco... I finally realized the only way we were getting back to the dock was for me to become a drill sergeant and push Maddy and Nick to row their little hearts out. (I won't mention the part about almost tipping the canoe....) They performed admirably! Walter on the other hand went into the reeds of the shore and basically pushed his canoe home.
Ahhhh another enjoyable, relaxing day of vacation with Walter..... I will let Amy tell the rest of the vacation story since she is so good at doing the vacation summaries!
2 comments:
Sounds like one of those times that, while during it you want to kill someone, is great to look back upon and laugh - glad you can do the laughing now. :-)
I just like giving Walter a hard time.... I wouldn't go camping with anyone else (well except my own husband, but I fear he and Amy would be at the local inn eating a gourmet meal while Walter and I are out on some crazy adventure). And besides, we have to have a new story to tell over the campfire next year!
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