Canoe Trip

Sunday I was invited to join my brother and his friends on a wild canoeing adventure ... ok maybe not as much wild as more the adventure. Phil was supposed to come too but after a long walk on the beach he decided to do other things like get an oil change (lammmme) oh well as Mike stated he will not be able to use that excuse for the next 3,000 miles. Anyways off we went to Jonathan Dickinson State park (i think its a state park). At 11 am on a Sunday. We rented 2 canoe's for 5 people. Pat was in my canoe and was the steerer (ok now i'm making up canoe terms) and off we went. I was most fearful for the alligators, as my last memory of canoeing at Jonathan dickinson was when Pat and I were little and my mom and dad piled us into a canoe, we got lost, it started pouring down rain, our map got wet and crumbled and my dad kept saying that gators loved to come out of the water when it was raining. Talk about scarred for life ... or maybe just 15 years. Pat has been canoeing at the spot about 6 times, so at least we didn't have to worry about getting lost. We saw one gator, a bunch of turtles, birds, and my favorite an OTTER :) Yes an Otter ... I wanted to call it a seal when it poped its little head out of the water and looked straight at me. Unfortunately, I had a brain lapse when I was "packing" and thought well I'm not taking my nice camera because it will get wet in the canoe ... what I didn't think about was Ziploc bags. Oh well ... so the whole 2 1/2 hours we are canoeing I am thinking that would be a great picture and that and ohh that is so pretty ... so when I went to write this post I googled canoe and these are the lovely images that came up. I wish I would have had my camera when we saw the otter but he was there for 5 seconds and I highly doubt I would have been able to snap him unless I had my camera on and pointed in the direction. I guess there's always a next time, and next time I will bring my ziploc bag. So I got home, in one piece, smelling like river with some "apple" goo on my leg from when i stole them out of Mike & Steve's canoe and then Mike tried to snag them back, tired, sore, and picture-less. I was hurting pretty bad last night, like I hadn't lifted weights in a decade .. but today I'm a little better and next time we canoe I won't be scared we'll end up like this ...