Dave's younger brother, Bradley, came to visit us on his way over to Beaufort, SC where he is being transferred with the Marines as an Air Traffic Controller. We made sure to give him a good Arkansas experience by enjoying the awesome and beautiful outdoors (afterall, Arkansas is known as the "natural state"). We hiked Lake Ouachita and canoed the Saline river while he was here.
Lake Ouachita
As always, Sadie and Tucker loved swimming in the lake, fetching sticks and rocks, and splashing us with water as they dried off.
It was a beautiful, sunny day, and we enjoyed the beautiful scenery. As for the canoe trip...well, that was
entirely different experience!
The {Crazy} Canoe Trip:
The canoeing excursion down the Saline river was quite the experience! I can honestly say that is the first and last time we will ever take our canoe on that river. What we thought would take us between 1.5 to 3 hours took 6! And that's just the beginning... The Saline river runs a few miles south of the I-30, also known as Tornado Alley.
There were tons (and I mean tons) of downed trees to avoid while canoeing. I suppose it is simply from years of tornado's passing through the area without ever being cleaned up. We saw several (large) items and debris that had been seemingly chucked into trees and wedged between branches. We even saw a deer carcass/skeleton that was wrapped around a branch overhanging the river (sorry if that was too graphic). The only way we could figure that it got there was by a tornado.
I would share pictures of all the things we saw, but I wasn't brave (or stupid) enough to bring my camera, and thankfully so! About half way through our trip, we caught a current that took us sideways..straight into a downed tree. We had experienced similar situations along our journey, but had always been able to push off [the spider infested] tree's and get back on course.
On this particular occasion we weren't quit as fortunate. As we hit the tree we all tried to push off, but the current was pushing to strong against us. Dave, along with the front end of the canoe, some how managed to escape under the tree, while Bradley and I were pinned up against it. The canoe began to
quickly fill with water and I could feel it trying to flip up over us. At this point, I decided that we would be in worse shape if we tried to hold on any longer and Bradley must have had the same thought (note: all of this went on for a period of about 5-8 seconds).
We both bailed out of the canoe and into the water. We quickly rushed over to the canoe to help Dave pull it to a near by gravel bar, when all the sudden Dave yelled out, "the ore" as it rushed passed him! He then went running down the river after it. I guess Bradley had somehow lost it in the midst of all the chaos. Thankfully the river wasn't that deep so he was able to keep his feet under him for the most part. Bradley and I watched as Dave made every effort to get to it.
The ore was finally wedged up against a downed tree about 80 yards ahead of where Bradley and I stood. Dave reached the tree, but the water was too deep in this area to stand. He wrapped his arms around the log and carefully scooted across to try and reach the ore. He could feel the water sucking him under the log, and just as he was about to go under he reached for the ore, grabbed it and pulled him self on top of the tree.
Bradley and I were in the process of getting everything out of the canoe so that we could dump the water out, when I glanced down the river to see how Dave was doing. He was laying flat on his stomach across the log, and not moving. A moment of fear rushed through me, as I wasn't sure if he was okay. I called down the river at him. He responded, somewhat exasperated, "I'm okay". He laid there for a while long, I suppose gaining his nerves, and then tread back up to where we stood.
We then finished the remaining 3 hours (thankfully with 2 ores)
somewhat uneventful. I was cold and wet and had to go pee terribly. We stopped 3 times as I tried to go but my body wouldn't let me (a problem following my last surgery). By the time the trip was done, I was so thankful that we were all safe! It was a story I just couldn't help sharing with you all.
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