Hello! It's A River That's Barely Deeper Than My Knees!

So the Burke ladies went to good old Island Park over the weekend. For those of you who don't know, it's pretty much a get away staple for those of us in southeast Idaho. Staying in the cabin was nice and relaxing.
The real morale of this story is that Paula and I are super women. We paddled the Buffalo river with four kids. It's five miles peeps! And some of those hours were spent with a baby sleeping on my shoulder. Every time I rowed, I closed my eyes and hoped baby wouldn't wake up. Because when she wasn't sleeping, she was screaming. And if you have ever been in the great outdoors with people who are trying to fish while holding a screaming baby, then you understand the death glares I was getting.

 The guy at the dock actually had the nerve to say to us, "It's just you two women with four kids? You'll be out there all day!" I was ultra annoyed considering the deepest part of this river is probably no taller than my knees. PLUS I have floated this thing in the middle of DECEMBER (that was a shout out to you two, Megan & Star ;) GIVE ME A BREAK! I had to hold back the "Yup and being that it is the 21st century, woman are actually allowed to own land as well!" comment. Paula handles these things so much better than I, so I let her respond. She responded with such class when asking what he meant by that. I had mentally checked out at that point, so I can't tell you what he said. Probably something stupid.

While it was a lot of fun, it was still a lot of work. There wasn't a whole lot of floating going on. It was a heck of a lot of paddling. I love being on the water. But between passing out juice boxes, chips, crackers and handling a screaming baby, it was a lot more work that it probably should have been. That really doesn't matter because P and I learned that we could do it and make it work. And yes, with just us. Don't get me wrong, it would probably be easier with more people, just not necessary.

The tragic ending was when Paula fell in (here is her version). By the end of our journey, we were exhausted. I suggested she hop out and drag our boat to the dock. But her vision was compromised by her utter exhaustion and she ended up getting her foot stuck in the boat while already in the hopping out motion. I have a great photo memory of looking over my shoulder to see her shocked face being submerged in the water. My first instinct was to laugh, which I did. Of course then I was super embarrassed and quickly jumped up to help her out. She was completely under though. Ok, it's still kind of funny when I think about it :)

Yup, I would have to say the only negative part about this journey was this demon. She was a terror for certain parts of the trip. And it wasn't like we could just pull over and be done with it. We were committed and she was committed to being naughty. At one point, I was considering hooking her life jacket to the bow and using her as screaming ornament to alert bears, elk and moose that we were coming, but I fought the urge. But once she fell asleep, we started having fun again.

Of course that involved me ROWING with a sleeping BABY on my shoulder. Yes Chase does tell me the story gets more and more dramatic every time I tell it. But I ROWED a BOAT with a SLEEPING BABY on my lap. Doesn't that qualify me for some kind of award?