Canoeing

I'm not an experienced canoe-er. I went once or twice with my church youth group a long time ago, and I went twice as part of a "team building experience" a tmy last job. But it's a theatre department tradition to go canoeing every summer, a tradition that I didn't take part in last summer or the summer before, so I sucked it up - and yesterday, I went canoeing.

While there are no rapids on the Platt River, I had several moments where I felt like I was these guys in this picture. My canoe was out of control. I was the more experienced canoe-er in my canoe, so I was steering, but I swear to you, I was steering as hard as I could and we still managed to run headlong into a tree... on more than one occasion. I lost my sunglasses in the river within the first five minutes, because it was lose the sunglasses or lose an eye. We ran aground. We lost our paddles. We almost tipped. And it took a really, really long time.
When we finished canoeing, we were supposed to have a cookout at this delightful little park where Platt River runs into Lake Michigan - but a super wicked thunderstorm came up and the whole department hurried back to campus, where we hung out in the dark scene shop (oh, 'cause the power went out) and had a "cookout" inside and there weren't enough drinks and most everyone was miserable.

And that's why I don't go canoeing.

canoeing - D