Meet me at the bottom

Last weekend I went canoeing with K and her old friends on the Current River in downstate "Mizurrah." After a late flight into STL and a two-hour drive beyond that, we hadn't had much sleep before heading to the canoe rental place. They bussed the nine of us with some other folks down to the river, and we put in near Montauk State Park around 9:00am. By 9:30, Kristin and I were wet.

The river was pretty low most of the way due to the dry season the whole country seems to have been having. We were scraping the bottom frequently, having to push hard with our paddles at times to keep moving, though the river was moving pretty steady just over 2 mph. In one spot, we got caught in some downed branches while taking a turn a bit too wide. After about a minute of lunging and mad paddling to try without success to dislodge our vessel, I decided to simply step into the water and push the canoe free. This would be a quick little task, and I didn't even need to mention it to K because by the time she saw me get out we'd have our canoe unstuck. So I thought.

Turns out that the deepest part we had passed yet was the exact spot that we were stuck. So with my right leg in the boat and my left leg searching for a shallow river bottom, the canoe started tipping. The bottom must have been about five and a half feet, because we turned completely before I felt ground. Thankfully, our belongings were all strapped in. I could see Kristin getting mad, until, once we got ashore, she realized that our lunch had stayed dry inside the cooler. We dumped our extra water and had a good laugh, then got back on the water to face the rest of our trip with wet clothes.