Camping/canoeing 2009

OK. I am well aware that this post is 2 years late. And I am also painfully aware that just about everyone I know has heard this story.  However, in the spirit of recording life's more amusing moments, I am going to tell this story YET AGAIN!!!  I also need to follow up with my diary of this year's camping/canoe trip.  And my sense of order does not allow me to tell the stories out of order. (Spoiler alert: Daniel and I bailed out on the canoeing part of this year's trip)

Anyway, I married into an "outdoorsy" family. The Ruoffs camp. Fletchers do not. Ruoffs also canoe. Fletchers do not. So, two years ago when Eric's brother was arranging a family camping/canoe trip I was a bit apprehensive. It would have been fine if Eric and I had only one or two kids and we could all go in one canoe with Eric at the helm. But, noooo, we went and had four children, which means that our family needs two canoes -- one with Eric and 2 kids and one with me and 2 kids.

So, after a 30 minute van ride down a dirt road, after which I was feeling more than a little motion sick, Eric puts me in a canoe with Mark and Daniel and pushes me out onto the river. Note that I say "river". This is not a lake with wide open space and little current. This is narrow, with logs and tree branches to challenge even the most experienced canoe-steerer.  And have I mentioned that I DON'T KNOW HOW TO STEER A CANOE!!! So, off we go with me saying to Eric "You need to come right after us because I don't know what I'm doing." Well, seems that Donny Do Right didn't hear me and decided that he would help everyone else get into their canoes and onto the river...leaving me floating down the river alone. Needless to say, things didn't go well.

100 yards into the trip, a canoe in front of us tipped over, dumping its occupants into the water. Daniel freaked and cried for the next 30 minutes.  He actually said "I want to go to a hotel" -- yup, that's my boy!  I was really not able to calm his fear as we were going backwards, sideways and every which way down the river.  When I realized that the S.O.B. was not coming, I grabbed a tree branch and held on for dear life.  Meanwhile, the rest of his family members are maneuvering their canoes with grace past me.  Every once and a while I would let go and try again, but every attempt seemed to bring a new challenge. A low hanging tree branch hitting Mark in the face, a log to steer around which always resulted in a sideways/backwards predicament, another canoe in trouble to get Daniel crying again.  Things were not going well and I was pissed!

Eric finally caught up and boy did he hear it. I was actually asking complete strangers as they passed if they knew good divorce attorneys.  He had to jump out of his canoe twice to help get me around logs. And did I mention that he had Brooke and Kevin...our two oldest children in HIS canoe.  He was desperately trying to "right" the situation with instuctions "Paddle right, no left. Paddle backwards. No. On the right!" Really not that helpful.

After about an hour of this torture...and that hour seemed like days!!!...I said to Eric, "I think we need to pull over to that sandy area and re-group. None of the kids are even sunscreened." His response was "Oh, OK, well I sunscreened myself."  Are you kidding me?!?! He actually sunscreened himself and none of our children AND was dumb enough to tell me! I suggested that next time he keep his mouth shut and re-apply.

We stopped, sunscreened, had lunch and recruited his niece to steer my canoe. Really, we can credit her with the fact that we are still married today.  Thanks Lindsay!!