What Was I Thinking?

Have you ever tried to do the right thing and end up making a mistake and feeling stupid?  I felt that way this past Saturday while stranded on a rock in the middle of the Buffalo River.


Floating down the river in a canoe was something Glenn wanted to experience but was told he was too old to try.  I often spoke of funny things that occurred when Mike, the kids and I had gone out on the river.  There were so many sweet memories, and the joy on my face recalling them, made Glenn only want the experience more.


I made a bad decision though last month and it couldn't be any more obvious than what happened on Saturday.  Trying to recall the names of the many places we had gone floating, the only one that came to my mind was Ponca.  Before I knew it, Glenn had made a reservation there and there was no turning back. 


After rethinking it, I talked Glenn into calling the Ponca station, to see if we could push off our trip a couple of weeks, otherwise we would have to forfeit our deposit. They agreed to two weeks which gave me a little more time to wrestle if we should proceed.  I had a bad feeling all the way there Saturday. 


The water was fast and high.  I had never seen things that way on any of the trips I had been on before, with the exception of the Mulberry  I knew we were in trouble.  Glenn had this huge smile on his face awaiting the adventure.


The first time we flipped left me freezing like I have never felt before.  The wind was so strong that it left "drying out" almost impossible.  I tried to grunt through it which made my goal to stay in the canoe my only focus.


I got down low in the canoe and tried to really sight out the rocks to help make our floating over the rapid a success.  But...almost four hours into the trip, we tried to avoid a rock just at the point when two different streams were gushing down together.  The tip of our canoe just barely caught the edge of a rock and got stuck. As we tried to rock ourselves off of it, the force of the water and wind, spun us around so quickly it threw me out, and then Glenn.  I made my way back to the front of the canoe but I couldn't get it to dislodge and the rocks were so slippery, I just kept falling trying to make it to shore.  I was worried the canoe would swing around and make any injuries to Glenn worse.


I stood there on the rock with water up to my hips and my legs so numb, I couldn't feel them anymore.  I didn't want to move because all I could see was disaster. Evidently, those around me thought I was in shock or maybe suffering hypothermia.


Several men stopped to help.  One walked out on the rock that tipped us, and began to try and rescue me.  Everyone's life was in jepordy and I felt so foolish.  Canoes were coming right at me as our canoe began to fold in two, wrapped around the rock.  I just wanted Glenn to get to shore so no further harm would come to him. 


Eventually, the men tied to ropes together and threw it out to the man on the rock near me.  They were wanting me to hang on to the rope and let the current pull me on down and hopefully to the shore, so I could climb out. I lost the rope that was in my left hand when one person let go accidently.  It sent me further down stream and everyone realized I still had the rope in my right hand.  The force of the river was so hard, all but two fingers kept me attached.  The rope finally slipped out of them and Glenn was able to catch it and hand it to me. Just like a man reeling in a large fish, several men pulled me to shore.


I was so cold I couldn't stand still I was shaking so hard.  They offered to put us back in and I couldn't do it.  So we ended up hiking a horse trail for about 2 or so miles, being ferried across two more bends in the river.  The men were able to tie a rope to the canoe and the force of the river pulled the canoe around so fast that the canoe popped back into place. They continued to help others that were in distress at the same point and then they floated our boat down to the next landing for us.


More of an adventure than I wanted.  I couldn't feel any worse.  Glenn and I were not going to share our story, but we both felt conviction to share it, because of how the circumstances fell into place.  The most interesting of those we had, was a man that only had shorts on jogging through the forest.  He came out of the woods from nowhere.  When one of the men offered to hike back to the landing with us, he asked the man how far we would need to go.  The man kept running but said, that way for two or more miles wading through the river two more times.  I saw the man on the other side of the river running away, wondering where he was going.  I thought he was going to help.


This afternoon Glenn and I were recalling the experience and Glenn brought up the man who was jogging.  He said that was really odd because the man wasn't wet and he had nothing else with him.  Then Glenn said the man just jogged on up the edge of the river.  I told him that wasn't possible because I saw the man on the other side of the river.  Glenn argued there was no way possible that the man crossed the river there, because that horse trail was exactly where I was stranded.  We can't make any sense of this other than we feel God sent several angels into our pathway that day.


As for the decision I made to go forward with the floating trip.  I felt it was a huge mistake.  Glenn thought it was great fun and wants to do it again.  I told him he will need to find someone else to go with him because I didn't think I could ever do it again.

More Renovations Possible

Glenn and I are still making renovations to our home. 


In the past couple of weeks we have been improving the powder room in the back of the house.  Glenn has been re-staining the cabinets back to their original appearance before I had him test-staining them darker before the kitchen renovation project last year.  We added a new coat of paint to the walls and replaced the chrome accessories to match the faucet.  A BIG checkmark off that TO DO list!!!  And it looks so nice!


Our next project is replacing the flooring I ruined in the hall when I over filled the bath tub a couple of months ago.  We also took out the last of the carpet that was in the play room beside that bathroom, so we're going to try and match the two flooring together.  Only problem is the original flooring is no longer manufactured so we're trying to find a suitable solution.


The last change we hope to make is putting in two sky lights in the living room.  It can be very dark inside the house even on the brightest of days.  I'm use to more light and feel that will make a huge improvement.


So now....we're waiting on the estimate and when they can start!