Staying Afloat

My mom once told me that if I can canoe with a man (that I'm in love with) and still be in love with him after the paddle, then it was safe to marry him. I am not sure where that wisdom came from... good experience with my dad? Bad experience with some schmuck?.... 

Anyways, Joel and I never canoed together before we got married, but we did do a lot of other things together that made us think we were ready for marriage. But, just to make sure we'd pass the test, we went for a paddle. 

One of the first steps of a paddle is to leave a bike down river so that you can get back to your car when you finish. We left a bike at ~38 mile Chena Hot Springs Road and then drove to mile 44. 

Not only did we need to love each other after the paddle, but we need to love each other after building the boat. 

We borrowed the canoe from our Norwegian friends Stian and Maria. It's the green thing in the back of our car. It comes in a big bag with straps like a backpack. Essentially you can hike with it. Although Joel explained to me that packrafts are much better because they weigh 6 lbs and are tiny. Did I mention they are about $1,000 a piece and we need one of them for each of us. I might also add that Joel has found many blogs of his now "packrafting mentors" that he shares with me daily. One "packrafting mentor" is termed a "mentor" by Joel, because they have communicated via e-mail. WOW. Do any of you remember how skeptical he was of our blog? Now to him blogs are AWESOME, especially when they are complete with GPS topo maps of trips. Ahh a GPS something else you need when you have a pack raft I suppose.  Okay enough picking on Joel.

Here is the skeleton for the canoe.

Here is the skin of the canoe

Here is Joel with the mallet to pound the skeleton into position.

(No mallet needed for a packraft). 

The finished product, a canoe.

Over all, it took us about an hour to build our boat. I thought it was totally remarkable and fun! Joel told me it takes 6 min in inflate a packraft. 

Almost a minute into the paddle Joel and I got a bit stuck on some rocks in shallow water and Joel had to get out and get us un-stuck. I think he said something along the lines of, "This is not good," or "We're not going to make it," or "We're gonna die," or "Jula I'm not good at this." 

Right now I'm taking a psychology class and we're learning about how the emotions of people around us cause us to feel the same way. That happened, and I thought we were doomed, when before he said anything, I thought we were fine, just stuck.  So Joel had cold wet feet and we canoed. Thankfully he had on awesome smart wools from mom and his tootsies warmed-up nicely. 

Joel sat in the back an steered, and I paddled in the front. It took us a while to get the hang of me paddling and Joel steering. Every once in a while my arm would get tired and I would switch sides, Joel would get a little frustrated and say, "Pick a side Jula." I could swear he was just bad at steering and so I had to do more work, but I was probably wrong. 

Beautiful Chena River

Taking a break on a sand/gravel bar. There are a ton of these and Joel and I were thinking about doing a longer trip and stopping to camp on one of these sometime. 

The steerer. Near the end of the trip Joel began to teach me paddling technique and how to be powerful. I wonder if he would be so picky with my paddling technique if we were in separate packrafts. We pretended we were in "The Last of the Mohicans". I told him he could call me Sacagawea, or Pocahontas and he could be John Smith. 

Some of the many mergansers that we saw. 

This is a picture of some clouds and the granite tors. The tors are hard to see, but they are the little pointy things on the far hill side. Joel and I did a hike to the granite tors

and you can see that blog using the link.

Here is a huge eagle that watched us as we paddled by. 

One of the last steps is to find the bike. 

And bike back to the car

And leave your wife on the side of the river to take apart the canoe. He's hard to see, but Joel is biking on the far right end of the bridge. 

I wonder how long it takes to deflate a pack raft? I think I'll ask Joel. 

The End

ohh yeah.... and we still love each other, and can't wait to paddle together again someday. 

Maybe in pack rafts :) but we know we can handle a canoe.  

* Disclaimer: And I really am not as bitter about this packrafting idea as I sound in this blog. It's just fun to pick on Joel, and I love how excited he gets about it. 

Please refer to  alpacaraft.com to understand how cool this is.