Without A Paddle

So I need to play a little catch up on my recent adventures! The night before I flew to California, my friend Kate texted me about floating the Tualatin River. It was such a nice day and I thought it would be a great way to start my vacation. We got on the river around 8pm ready for our 5 mile canoe trip. We had 2 canoes and 2 girls in each.

The river didn't really have a current so we had to paddle if we wanted to go anywhere and the water didn't look very clean. Kristina and I were having a little trouble going straight and after a little bit we discovered that one of the sides of the canoes was deflating...awesome! So I got in the other canoe and we kept going. It was a good evening to be outside and it very peaceful.

About half way through our trip, we came to this little dam. It wasn't too big, but as the first canoe when down it popped the bottom of the boat and got stuck in the current. It made me nervous as our canoe went down, but we made it safely. The first canoe became pretty useless so we had to made another change. Kristina, Katie, and I all got into the good canoe, and Kate rode in the deflated canoe tied onto our canoe. We still had half way to go and with our new arrangement we found that one or both of the canoes would get stuck on the rocks. It would take quite a bit of effort to free ourselves and we just had to face that we were going to have to get in the water. Then paddling was made difficult with pulling the dead weight of the deflated canoe so we were quite slow. I ended up being the main paddler and as it turned dark, it became hard to navigate the river.

We luckily were laughing about this crazy situation we got ourselves in. My arms were ready to fall off and there river just seemed to keep going. Then we finally were approaching the end when we got stuck on a huge rock! Kristina, Katie, and I got out of the boat to push and then the current picked up and we almost lost the canoe. Then we had to go under a bridge and Kate warned us that sometimes homeless people are under there and to paddle quickly under it. For some reason, I had in my mind homeless people trying to grab us and take our canoe, but we didn't see anyone. We finally made it to the end ready to be done with the river!

I didn't get home until 11pm and still had to pack for California so I ended up going to bed at 1am. When I woke up at 4am for my flight, my arms were so stiff and sore!!!