Canoe Trip

Canoe Trip

The long anticipated day was here at last. I was going away with Danny, my husband of three years, for the weekend. We looked forward to this weekend because we lived with other people, so we did not get many opportunities to be completely alone. We arrived in Hardy, Arkansas at 11:00 Friday morning. We checked in to our fancy and romantic Jacuzzi suite, and decided to go ahead and check out the canoe trips since there was a chance of rain on Saturday.

We realized that we were truly out in the country as we drove to the canoe trip place. The only chain restaurant we could see was a McDonald's, all the others were privately owned country restaurants serving fried catfish and Steaks. We arrived at the canoe place and went inside the small shop filled with fishing bait and items to accompany you on the long canoe trip. The older lady behind the counter informed us that it was too late to take the long canoe trip today, but we could take the short one at a smaller price. We decided we would do the short trip first and then do the long trip on Saturday if it did not rain. We only purchased two bottles of water, and a bottle of sunscreen to accompany us on the trip, since we chose the short trip.

The guy who drove us down to the river looked like he should be on rednecks most wanted. He was skinny and he had long black hair, and buck teeth. For a minute there I thought I was in one of those horror movies and his intentions were to take us somewhere else and have us gutted. Needless to say that was not the case, we arrived at the river within five minutes, and he placed our canoe in the water and gave us directions to our destination. Danny and I climbed into the long red canoe and picked up our yellow paddles and we were on our way down the river.

I have to stop and tell you how beautiful this scene was. The water was lightly brown and flowing at a slow continuous speed. There were immensely grown green trees all around the side of the river, and the sound of the river was peacefully calming to hear, along with the occasional sound of birds chirping throughout the area. For a moment there we were having a peaceful and glorious time. It did not last too long.

We noticed that the sound of the water was getting louder and we both looked toward each other and said "uh oh", both of us wondering what we got ourselves into. We came across a shallow waterfall area that was undoubtedly gorgeous, but at all means not easy to get through. You see both me and my husband are not what you call skinny athletic people, we are what you call overweight lazy couch potatoes. So we got stuck on the rocks where we were supposed to sail right over. The option of me getting out was not good because I have bad knees and if I got out I probably would have busted my behind on the sharp pointy rocks. So my wonderful husky husband climbed out of the back and started to push the canoe forward while I rocked hard up at the front to get the canoe to move. We finally mastered our first hard task of the canoe trip, and Danny climbed back in. We were on our way again. We faced ten more of those adventures but we got through them all, or should I say Danny got through them all, as I just sat in the front and waited on him to push me.

We were still having a great time, until we came across the deadly and dangerous looking waterfall. It was short, but we knew it had potential to knock us off our lazy butts and out of the canoe. There was only one way to go and that was forward, so we faced it with brave hearts. Of course we were not smart enough to go down the middle so we flew down the side of it. We did alright until the bottom of it where we realized we were tipping over. Before I could shout "Oh my God!" we were under water. I panicked until I remembered that I could swim, so I pushed myself up and looked for Danny. There he was panicking because our canoe was floating off. I realized one of my flip flops was floating down stream, so I went after my flip flop leaving Danny to tend to the boat. I could hear him screaming at me to come and help him, but I knew I could not help unless I had my flip flop on, so I ignored him and continued after my flip flop. I realized that my life jacket was weighing me down so I took it off, still ignoring my angered and anxiety ridden husband. Finally, I realized that I could not get my flip flop and that if I did not go help Danny someone in one of the houses on the bank was going to call the cops, because now Danny was cussing at me. So I took off to help him.

After about thirty or forty minutes we got our canoe to the bank and dumped the water out of it. Danny of course used his tired muscles to do all the work while I just dumbly stood there not knowing how to help him without hurting myself. He survived though and soon enough we were floating back down the river. We detoured a little bit to go pick up my flip flop which I was happy to retrieve. We hoped that waterfall was our last surprise and it was. The next hour was relaxing enough, even though we were growing tired, and we had no water and sunscreen because they disappeared when we flipped over.

We arrived at our destination, and waited an extra hour for Rednecks Most Wanted to pick us up. I guess he figured we would be longer than expected. When we arrived back at the place the lady asked us if we would like to purchase the long trip for Saturday and we quickly said no in unison, both of us grateful that we decided to do the short trip first. We enjoyed the rest of our weekend by fishing and swimming, but we did not get back in a canoe. Although that canoe trip was fun and adventurous, we decided doing it one time was enough. I thought that was the smartest thing we ever decided.