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Life’s a Dam Adventure — 5 Comments

  1. What a great real life story. It helped me to know you as a mom and adventurer not just the wonderful writer you are! Thanks!

  2. We frequently canoe a river in Michigan that is rather challenging in spots, but nothing like what you ran into! My worst experience was on a girl scout trip…we divided everyone up by ability which meant my daughter was steering with an adult in the front. No problem right? At the first opportunity to stop she told me she refused to get back in with said adult as the adult wouldn’t paddle. So, off I went with the mom. She said she didn’t have much experience so I was teaching her the basics. It was a tough river full of fallen trees and (No portages, thank goodness) I told her the only thing she really had to do was when I asked her to paddle hard, she had to paddle hard. Simple enough, right? Then we got to the downed log at the curve. There were girls maneuvering through it so our approach wasn’t prefect so I told Nancy it was time to paddle as hard as she could. And she sat there with her paddle on her lap. I’m shouting at her to paddle…nothing. .so we hit the log sideways and as I’m attempting to singlehandedly get us out, I fall out of the canoe. I’m now trapped between the canoe and the log with the water rushing under the log pulling my legs under with significant force. And there Nancy sits, paddle on her lap, calmly waiting for me to drown. Fortunately another adult group came by and managed to help me extricate myself and back into the canoe with Nancy I went….for the next 3 hours! No swearing, it was a girl scout trip. But to this day I’m still terrified when we come anywhere near downed trees when canoeing. I definitely think I’ll stay out of the water in Texas!

    • The River Rat who did our orientation warned us about downed trees, saying that they were a HUGE drowning hazard and to do everything we could to stay away from them. I’m sorry you had that happen.

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