Craziness

When my family gets together you can guarantee something will happen that will be a memory that is talked about long after the event is over.  As time goes by the story will become funnier, crazier and even embellished.  One thing is certain, we all had fun.  This canoe trip was no exception.  No pictures of the actual memory will be posted.  You'll have to take my word for it. 

My family traveled to Rochester, MN to visit my sister Cheri, her husband, Kirk and two of her kids, Nate and Danae ( and Mike - Danae's BF) for the long weekend.  Friday we went canoeing....that's where the fun began. 

We headed out to Lansboro and rented two kayaks and three canoes for the 8 of us.  Cheri and I were in a canoe together thinking it was the "safe" canoe since we had the camera and cooler.....biggest mistake of the trip.  At our first stop I ended up in the drink when Cheri decided to lean out one side and get out without notice..next thing I knew I was wet... then Scott Bailey had a little war in the water....

What happened after we got back in the canoes was epic.  Cheri and I went ahead of the group and got pretty far ahead, so we thought we should wait up.  I grabbed a branch hanging over the water to slow us down and help us to stop. That was the beginning of the end. We flipped the canoe.  We had the cooler and camera (in the cooler)  everything started to float away.  I mean everything...flip flops, shorts, water bottles, cooler, camera, paddles, life jackets...and the canoe without us in it.  We were laughing, panicking and desperately trying to gather our belongings and save the camera, but mostly we were trying to save our life's!!  The water was shallow and swift where we were...no standing up possible without serious injury.  Instead, we were dragged by the water down the rocky river bed getting bruised, bloody and broken.  We saved all items...except only the memory card from the camera remained alive...the camera is now in a bag of rice hoping to dry out.  All during and long afterwards Cheri and I laughed so hard we couldn't speak....and still cannot speak of it without laughing so hard we cry.