Going for A Paddle

My two favorite paddlers - on Rice Lake.

Our "shore lunch" under the bridge. Seth was a baby bird hungry for yogurt!

Mom preparing said "shore lunch" for my men folk. Yes - barefoot on rocks is not a good idea but with swollen, mosquito bitten feet I had little choice.

After our camping trip for the weekend fell apart (see The Shortest Camping Trip in Johnson History) we decided that we should spend some family time on Sunday canoing. We headed out to the Rice Creek Chain of Lakes to paddle around a bit. We had never been out there before and knew it could be an adventure. We were not let down!

Once in the boat we paddled around one lake that was more like a Lilly pad infestation. Go figure, now that I look at the map it was called Marshan Lake. It was really shallow, as in we were still floating. but you could only get half of your paddle in the water. After twenty minutes of that we turned around and headed the other direction. The little channels were really neat and we saw a lot of cranes and other various birds, even a bald eagle soared above us at one point. Fish were practically jumping in the boat which was cool and creepy all at once. On Rice Lake there is actually an airport of sorts for water planes which was really neat. We didn't get to see one take off or land but the planes were fun to see none the less.

We beach ourselves once as I was not paying close enough attention but I was able to step out and push us back to rushing waters once again. Then again we also hit some rocks I should have avoided. It appears the lack of sleep had me in quite a stupor of sorts. In fact on the way home I hit the wrong button on the car door and rolled Jason's fingers up in his window - oops. Time for mom to take a long nap, maybe even drug induced!

We ate lunch on some rocks under a bridge and paddled back to our car. Seth got a bit antsy with that much time just sitting in the canoe, but he didn't complain much. Had he dumped us over we all could have stood up and walked back too : ) Best of all, there were no bugs, just a beautiful day on God's creation!