TUESDAY

We all slept in until 7:15 today. Then Dad took us kids to see the horses rounded up before breakfast while Mom showered and got dressed. It turns out that she was quick and took advantage of her quiet and solitude by relaxing out on the cabin's porch with a god book and a hot cup of coffee before she decided to come down and meet us at the lodge for breakfast at 8:30!

Today we had eggs sausage, hash browns, cereal and OJ. Then we got ready for our canoe trip!

Everybody met out in front of the lodge at 9:45 so we could load into 2 large vans (there were about 25 of us) to drive to the mouth of the river. Everyone was excited. Well, Mom was a bit nervous.

There was rushing water at the starting point which kind of scared her since she would be paddling in the front of her canoe. Doug was in the center just vegging and wrangler Jeff was steering in the back.

Nick paddled in the front of his canoe with Christina in the center and Dad in the back.

Our group had ten canoes for the 6 mile trip. The scenery was stunning, surrounded by high cliffs on both sides. Some of the bluffs were easily 200 feet high in places.

It turns out that Mom was having a blast! She wasn't even having any motion sickness. She also loved heading over the rapids. We were all wet but didn't care because the sun kept us warm.

We stopped halfway at a place called Jim's Bluff for lunch. Today's brown bag lunch was turkey sub sandwiches, chips, juice, and candy bars. We climbed up a big boulder and at in the sun to talk about our adventures on the 1st half of the trip.

Here is a family picture of the five of us. What is Jeff doing over there by that tree?

2 of the canoes in our group flipped over (neither one of them was ours).

The final leg of the journey was tougher because the sun started to go behind the clouds and people were paddling slower-either because they were tired from the 1st leg or just too relaxed from our nice long lunch! Mom, Jeff and Christina (Doug and Christina switched canoes after lunch) had to stay behind all the other canoes so that Jeff could help out in case anyone else flipped their ride.

Pretty soon the wind kicked up and storm clouds rolled in so we knew we had to speed up.

When we finally came to the end everyone was shivering and had their teeth chattering. Mom just wanted to do it over again! We all got toweled off and climbed back in to the heated vans and had a fun ride back to the ranch.

We found out that there had been a water main break by the time we returned, so we had to settle for a change of dry clothes instead of the hot showers we were all looking forward to!

At 4:00 we met over at the arena where the kids had horse riding lessons. We learned how to start, stop, trot, lope and gallop on our horses. Mom videotaped it all. Then we went back to the lodge for hot chocolate, popcorn and games before dinner. Since there was no water, the cooks made due. We had fried fish and chicken, onion rings, fried okra, hush puppies, coleslaw and corn muffins. Then the grown ups had their horse riding class back up at the arena. Mom said that it was too cold out there for her so she stayed in where all the kids were watching Old Yeller. (We all really thought that she was looking for an excuse to get out of riding Diesel/Diablo again thought!) By 9:15 Dad was back so we all headed back to our cabin. Without any water though, we simply did our tic-checks and fell into bed!

Continued on Wednesday
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