The Threads and Scraps of my Life: Saturday, August 8th, Row, row, row your boat in a straight line down the stream!!

Today started humid and rainy and it looked like it was going to be a bit uncomfortable. But we decided to make the best of it, since we were going to be on a river all day anyway and would probably get wet. 24 ladies canoeing together is always fun!!!
We stopped in Marengo at McDonald's for breakfast and Angie tried to sit with this lady on the left. Since Angie knew only Robin and me and no one else in the group, she was clueless as ti who was in our group. The lady looked at her and said, "Well, I have people already sitting with me!!"

The laughter started already!!

Anytime you have this many women together, there will always be lines for the bathroom:

We started in the Cherry Hill area near Rockford on the Kishwaukee River. There is no real road in to the launch and they had rain on Friday for the first time in weeks, so this is what we encountered:

Nancy gave a little lesson before we set out, "This is a paddle, not an oar!!!"

Then we got on the bus:

And had to take it back out the way we drove in, which made for some 4 wheeling fun. I never thought I would do that in a school bus:

Then we unloaded at the launch site:

The river looked humid and eerie:

I looked up and there it was; a patch of blue sky and we had wonderful, although hot weather for the rest of the day:

Then we figured out who would pair up. We had a team of three, so had the largest canoe with Angie sitting in the middle:

Now to launch:

Unfortunately, right out of the gate, we had two canoes that dumped:

That started the day wet for a few.
A couple of hours into the day, we stopped at a little park for lunch. Then we heard some stories of dumping and ending up in the muddy river:

I think I will nominate Kathy for "What Not to Wear on a Canoe trip":

Thanks to my teasing, she threw out her 20 year old shorts and went out on Sunday and bought all new shorts.
We had a lovely lunch and we were all ravenous!!

Again, there were lines for the head, at times with supervision:

Tina Gil wins the "Brave in the Face of Stinky Pit Toilets" Award for the day. It took her several tries, but a full bladder always wins!

Then we set out with full tummies and empty bladders:

The second leg of the journey had more than it's share of trials. There were several more dumpings and Kathy's camera took a swim in the river:

Our canoe took a more meandering approach to the whole day. If everyone else paddled 9 miles, we probably did about 12 as we zig zagged down the river. We would get our rhythm and then it would all fall apart. There were times that I was laughing so hard, I was worthless as a paddler!