High Adventure On The River Arz

Yesterday the weather was lovely, so about 7:30 in the evening I decided to go for a solo canoe voyage down the river Arz.  I packed some dinner in a tupperware and brought my chocolate and my scriptures.  The bottom of the canoe was a little wet, but I set my scriptures on my sweatshirt to keep them dry and set off. 

My dad would be so proud of how I skillfully managed the canoe all by myself.  I moved calmly and confidently upstream, basking in the nature and the setting sun.  There were largeish furry creatures swimming around the banks, skampering in from the fields to splash into the water and duck into their tunnels.  Muskrats or something?  Once I saw a momma with 9 (!!) babies paddling from one hole to another.  Playdate at the neighbors?  One guy thumped over to the river so fast you would've thought a raptor was after him.  I daydreamed about raptors, about muskrats, about writing a blog about daydreams, and then wondered if I was getting hungry.

I tied the canoe up to a log so I could eat my dinner of lentils and cabbage in peace.  I was rocking out in my head to Pocahontas ("What I like most about rivers is, you can't step in the same river twice...") when I thought to myself that maybe I was sitting weird because it felt like my butt was falling asleep.  On further contemplation, I clarified that to, "no, my butt just feels cold" and then, "what the heck, my butt is wet!" as I looked down and saw the level of water in the canoe had risen to reach my bench.  "This was not the amount of water I started with," I thought, and I looked around in a panic to find the leak.  Sure enough, an old patch in the corner of the canoe behind me was bubbling water like nobody's business. 

I scarfed the rest of my lentils and cabbage and used the tupperware to bail out a good bunch of water before untieing myself from the log and taking off downstream as fast as I could paddle.  I briefly entertained a daydream about the patch busting loose entirely and finding myself standing in my sunken canoe, neck deep in the Arz (I'd grab my scriptures, my chocolate, and my sandles to hold over my head, in that order), but then decided not to invite further disaster with negative thinking.  Bail, paddle, bail, paddle...  Past the home of the nine babies, past the creepy fish corpse in the water...  Most of you won't be surprised that I was laughing the whole time, freaking out all the muskrats.

I'm here to tell you that I made it.  My butt was damp and my sweatshirt was soaked, but there were no casualties.  In the future, I'll pay more attention to suspiciously rising levels of water in the bottom of my boats.  Maybe I'll use one of the metal canoes without any benches next time.  That way I get to kneel in the middle like Pocahontas as I paddle around those riverbends.