Update:
July 4th 2004 Holiday Annette and Larry enjoy canoeing, so when we saw the canoe rental sign at the campground we immediately made plans for a day-trip. The weather was perfect - partly cloudy around 70 degrees. We packed our cooler, stadium pads, and a bag with Nature Conservancy magazines, sketchbooks, bug spray, and suntan lotion.
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Getting Started The Ausable river runs along our campground, so we packed our canoe and started the day adventure. Right away we noticed that the short canoe was a little "tippy" but we were on smooth water - - so no worries.
With little current, it was easy to paddle upstream. The photos above show the great green scenery in all directions. Annette continued to take photographs of the mountains that could be seen in all directions. The photo below includes Annette's foot so you can see we're in the canoe.
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The Beauty of Nature The river was alive with all kinds of creatures. Although we saw few fish, we could hear the frogs and the birds. We saw a number of duck families as well as a heron. We think the ducks below are Mallards. The ducklings are large and following the mother who is leading the family.
The river had a number of side channels to explore. We saw lots of birds on the side channels. The ducks below are called Common Merganser. The mother led the ducklings along the shore. The crest on the top of the mother's head stuck out when she was was upset. The ducklings were very small. It was funny watching them swim as a group.
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Return Trip After a couple miles, we reached an area of rapids and decided it was time to turn around. Annette thought it would be fun to include her feet in one more photograph (right after the photo below) and leaned back for the shot. This time she leaned a little too far to the left.
Remember, how tippy the canoe was? Well the canoe tipped; actually it kinda flipped and two surprised passengers found themselves upside down in the middle of the river. Luckily this occurred in a wide area where the river was only about 4-5 feet deep. After the initial shock of the cold water dunking, we had a good laugh. The only real casuality was Annette's old digital camera. Larry was already planning to buy Annette a new camera for her birthday. We tried bailing with our cup holders but that was too slow, so we ended up turning the canoe upside down. After a couple attempts to jump back in, we were on our way home. We made jokes all the way such as "Tippey-canoe and Annette and Larry too"... Ha-ha, groan. You probably had to have been there! We laughed at ourselves, because we have canoed on several fast-running streams but here we capsized in relatively calm water. It must have been a sight . . . |
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