Today we took the canoe to the mountains for our maiden voyage... it was an experience. The weather was less than ideal but we continued driving toward ominous dark clouds. After a lot of rain and a lot of wind and stopping twice to secure the canoe (once due to a loud thump which turned out to be an old dent popping out) the sun came out and the day turned beautiful. We wound up Beartooth Pass, once again in awe of God's creativity, making our way to Island Lake and the first time out on our canoe... this was not as uneventful as it sounds. As we went up the pass the wind picked up, and then picked up some more causing several more stops to secure and re-secure the canoe. We finally make it to Island Lake and realize that we probably should have known that the rainy day in Billings did not bode well for the mountains. The wind, rain and clouds had once again made their way into our day but, could we really drive for over 2 hours and not even put our boat in the water? No, not a chance :) We put the canoe in the water and loaded it up with our dogs, life vests and food and made our way out. The unpredictability of the wind and our 45 lb puppy means that we were out on the water for all of 10... maybe 15 minutes, but we know our canoe floats and look forward to many trips in the future! So began the process of loading the canoe back onto the truck and doing a bit more sightseeing before making our way home... which only continued the experience. As we were driving back up to the top of the pass we were feeling pretty good about how secure the canoe was, hoping not to make the excessive stops our original trip involved, one side gust of wind shattered that hope by blowing one of the blocks holding the canoe off the truck and into oblivion. What to do now? Well pull the other block off and use Jeff's Tevas to secure it, of course... It was all we had on hand and it basically got the job done, our trip was a little slower and definitely involved more stops than we would have wanted (we had a brand new dent in the top of the truck that once again popped out by the end of our trip) but we made it here. We had a blast together today, even contemplating the 10 min canoe ride, multiple unplanned stops and nearly being blown away by the wind... I would do it all again!
Here are a few pictures from our day:
4 comments:
You all do the greatest stuff! I think Baby Girl Grissom will need a good baby carrier/wrap to be attached to you and a little pink life vest, and you all will be all set.
You are great adventurers!
My family was JUST there last week! We drove Bear Tooth on Sunday and went all the way down to Reb Lodge and had breakfast. It was one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen - I am so jealous you live there! Maybe one day our Weimaraners can meet :).
I think you guys live in a postcard. It looks so beautiful and peaceful there. My blood pressure went down just looking at the pictures. Hey come see, I blogged about you! :o)
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