Anniversary River Ride

15 years, can you believe it?!

I don't feel old enough to be married that long.  

Here's our "happy couple" picture heading out onto the river.  That's how we get sunburned on good weather weekends in SE MN.

 We put in at Oxbow park for this outing.  There was just the right amount of water for the trip.  In a few places, there were cool cliff walls  - Brian was quick enough on the camera for this one. The river was moving pretty good in places and lazy in places.  Not nearly as swift and fun as last weekend, but it had a few more maneuvering challenges.

 In the final mile before Genoa, there was an extensive log-jam.  We had to pull up next to a huge tree, climb out of the canoe, balance carefully, and lift the canoe over. There was a lot of careful tree avoidance in this stretch.  We deemed it a poor choice for kayaks or beginners.  Good thing we have 15 years under our belts!

When we pulled out, we finished our lunch on the tailgate and I thought this was a lovely scene.  

The shuttle for this river ride was Brian's fat bike.  We were going to tandem, our anniversary custom, but the shuttle route involved a good amount of gravel. I soaked up the sunshine at a picnic table with a magazine while he drove to the end and biked back.  

We didn't see a single other boating party while on the route, though there were some people around Oxbow on the bridges.  There was an obnoxious lawnmower at one of the river-side estates that we had to listen to for about a mile. There was a huge, handsome bald eagle that we saw twice along the route.  There was an amazing number of ducks that kept trying to distract us away from the youngsters in their flock. And, black-winged, glittery green-bodied dragonflies were flittering about all the way along the river edges.

I'm just going to end this since I'm out of pictures and have added plenty of commentary.  If I don't, you'll get some sappy essay about how marriage is like a canoe trip down a river...