Sylvia had a solo visit to Texas with Granny and Grandad over Labor Day weekend. Boy, oh, boy did she have fun! While she was enjoying some one-on-one time with her grandparents, we decided to take Andrew on an overnight canoeing trip – something we don’t yet feel would be wise with Miss Sylv.
We packed up on Sunday and headed west from Madison. Bryan’s friends loaned us their canoe. We left the canoe at Tom’s place in Lone Rock, and then we shuttled the van downsteam to Blue River and left it at the Blue River bridge. We drove the other car back up to Tom’s, and put in to the lovely Wisconsin River in the mid-afternoon.
It’s so beautiful out there. So peaceful and gentle and serene. I ♥ the Wisconsin River!!
Andrew sat in the middle of the canoe on a milk crate, and he read Charlotte’s Web or helped paddle or snacked or chatted with us. A couple hours later, we found a nice sand bar and stopped for the night.
Andrew helped us gather up kindling for our fire, set up the tent, and get our food all ready.
He also ran races with himself up and down the sandbar to that clump of willows below.
Photo by Andrew:)
Here’s the three of us. Love.
Bryan got a good fire going, and he cooked up hamburgers.
This fire made some of the best marshmallow-roasting coals I’ve experienced in many-a-year. We sat up late together and watched the fire until it went out. Then we all snuggled in to the 2.5 person tent for a good night’s sleep. At least, Andrew and I slept well:)
The next day, we loaded up and headed back down the river. We played lots of “In my father’s grocery store” and “I’m going on a picnic and I’m going to bring…” games. We sang a little and snacked. Mid-morning, we stopped at this sandbar for a little running, cartwheeling, and snacking.
Is there a prettier landscape in all the world?
There’s the boys with the canoe!
Happy kid!
Andrew finished Charlotte’s Web in the mid-afternoon. We’d planned the trip to take us until about 1:30pm. And sure enough, at 1:30pm, we got to the Blue River bridge. But there wasn’t a parking area where we thought there should be. Confused, we decided to press on, hoping that there was a second (??) Blue River bridge just around the next corner. Three hours of heavy paddling later, we made it to the next boat landing in Boscobel. It turns out that there’s a big island in the middle of the Blue River bridge. We were only seeing one span, and what we thought was the shore was the island.
So we’d paddling an extra 12 miles or so to a place where our car was not. Fortunately, a nice retired police officer drove Bryan back to our van in Blue River while Andrew and I waited at the canoe. It ended up being a four-hour detour, but it all ended up just fine.
We got home around dark…tired and feeling good. Can’t wait for more adventures like these with my family!
<Click on the map below for a bigger view of the route we paddled.>
