Just around the river bend...

This past weekend, the cousins took a trip to the Current River in Missouri. 

Basically, I love canoeing and water and sunshine.  And, since such activities will be more difficult in a few months here, we figured we better do it now.

We loaded up and headed out after work on Friday.  

Our hotel for the night.

I would highly recommend. 

Saturday morning, bright and early, we drove to the rental place and loaded on to the bus that took us up stream. It was a little bit of a flash back for me, riding in the cramped school bus seats. 

Kandace, Carli, and Kayla. 

We got on the river at about 9:30.

Clayton and Carli

The mist was still rising.

Tate and Kandace

Kirk and Kayla

Nathan and me. 

This is so not flattering at all, 

but I never get pictures of myself, so I had to put it up.

Cliffs

One of my favorite parts, was the cave.   You could canoe directly in to it.   The cave was the mouth of one of the natural springs that feeds the river.  The water was clear blue and freezing cold. 

entering the cave

We couldn't all fit in the cave at once, so we pulled the canoes to the side and spent a while exploring.  

From the inside

Just look at that water.

It felt like we were in another country.

We stopped on a beach for lunch and swimming.  We switched up canoes throughout the day, so I ended up canoeing with Kandace, Jake, and Nathan. 

Jake did a great job of steering. And paddling. :)

My arms were pretty sore by the end.

We stopped at another spring. You could hike up a trail to the mouth. 

The spring

The colors were amazing.

This cabin was built in the early 1910s right by the spring.

Another stop for a swim

Right before the end, we stopped at the outlet of a warm spring. By that point it had clouded over, so the warm water was refreshing. 

We were about 20 minutes of paddling from the end, when it started to sprinkle.  Other than that, we had amazing weather. It was beautiful and sunny all day and never got unbearably hot. 

We got off the river at around 5:00. 22 miles traveled. :)

It was a great trip. I'd love to go back someday and canoe more of the river over a long weekend. 

In Christ

~Michelle