Last Saturday Chip decided he wanted to go kayaking. I asked him if we could go as a family, and he said sure. Not too long ago we discovered a creek than ran behind the local library. We decided to check it out.
Chip loaded up the kayaks and I packed the kids in the car, and we all headed down the street to the library. Although there is no official entry point into the water, we figured it'd be fairly easy to carry the kayaks across a small bridge and just push off from the bank.
As we approached the library we noticed that Main Street is far busier than usual. We couldn't tell what was going on, but it didn't matter...we were just there to take a relaxing ride up the creek.
Once we were on the bank, I stepped into the brisk water in order to climb aboard the kayak. Immediately my foot sank about four inches into sticky mud. Yes, my flip flop came off in the goo. Lovely. Once on board I noticed that my feet were no longer the familiar ivory color I'm used to; they were black. And to make matters worse, the inside of the kayak was now smudged with mud. Ordinarily it wouldn't be a problem, but since the kids were with us, it meant their bottoms would be muddied.
We headed upstream in hopes of escaping the boisterous activity and noise (Abby's description) of the harmonica music. Things went smoothly for the first three minutes. Then we saw it. A small - and I mean really, really small - waterfall.
After pondering how we would get up the waterfall, Chip decided it would be easiest if we just got out of the kayak and pulled the kayak up the ever-so-slight incline. By this time we had attracted quite a crowd. It's amazing how interested people become when they see people trying to go up a "waterfall."
I got out and pulled the boat up over the rocks. Chip did the same. We re-entered the kayaks and continued on our merry way. We went quite a distance and saw some really interesting things, which included a rock castle. Pretty weird. Pretty scary.
After some time, William became quite unruly. Chip offered to take him, and I agreed to swap. Abby came over to my kayak, and Chip took William. Ab was such a good companion. She kept talking to me about God. So sweet.
And then we saw it again. The waterfall. Chip went over it first. He made it look pretty easy until he got stuck. You see, at the base of the waterfall it is pretty shallow, probably only three or four inches. Me, being me, just started laughing in my usual maniacal laughing way. He was so frustrated - and embarrassed. There was yet another crowd watching.
My ride over the waterfall was just as easy and just as embarrassing. I, too, got stuck. I had to get out and drag the kayak off the rocks.
Once we got back to our landing point, we got out in the mud and drug our kayaks up the bank. I watched the kids while Chip loaded everything up. It was at this point that I noticed what a horrible mess we were. Chip and I had mud caked on our feet, we all had mud on our legs, and poor Abby had mud smeared on the back of her pink shorts. Honestly, we looked like we just crawled out of the swamp.
Of course there was a playground right near the bank. All Abby wanted to do was go play. Well, there was a birthday party going on in a pavilion right next to the playground. I was suddenly struck with the hilarity of it all - here we are looking like swamp people, and all my daughter wants to do is play next to the well-kept birthday people. I consented. Luckily no one gave me or my dirty daughter the evil eye.
Once Chip had everything loaded up I was ready to retreat to the car. He had other plans. He wanted to see what was going on on Main Street. So here we go down Main Street: Chip in his dirty shirt, muddy feet, and muddy legs; me with my muddy feet and wet shorts; Abby with her muddy bottom; and William in his shirt covered with spit-up. Everyone else was dressed nicely! I was just about in tears from laughing so hard. It was so funny walking around all trashy in the middle of a town party. We didn't run into anyone we knew. On the other hand, maybe someone saw us and just didn't want to stop and talk to us given our condition.
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