while mike's wife was having her baby shower mike hatched his plan to ride the canoes down the river. here we are about 500 yards from the canadian border putting the canoes in.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

things started out very calm and it was all fun and games at first.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

enjoying the scenery.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

we even found a decoy duck that mike grab for a canoe mascot. however, our duck would not make it home with us.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

notice how there is not much snow on those mountains? that is because it just melted and is flooding into this river as we are calmly riding down it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

as we get farther down the river it gets and much rougher. about where things got the most interesting justin was too occupied to take pictures.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

we went through a really rough stretch and when justin and i made it through, i looked back to tell the guys we were all right (i am not sure why i thought they would care). when i looked back they were both in the water with an upside down canoe floating down the river. i was immediately filled with that selfish "better them then me" sensation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

at first it didn't seem like a big deal but it took them a long time to get out of the water. they probably floated another 300 to 500 yards down the river before they were able to get out. justin and i did all we could just to pull to the other side of the river and watch.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

the water was very cold and our fellow explorers were not overly eager to get back in the canoe (frankly, i think they were mourning the loss of the duck decoy). so justin and i set off down the river to get the truck. luckily it wasn't far.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

we made it to the car without capsizing but we were taking on some pretty large amounts of water. it was actually quite fun but i must admit my enthusiasm waned a bit after i saw how hard it was for those guys to get out of the water.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

surveying the damage. unfortunately mikes canoe got a few battle scars from the incident. could the day possibly have any more excitment after this? oh, yes it could.