Well, we bought our first canoe! The previous owner bought the Ouachita in 1967. There are a couple dings but no leaks!

I've grown to adore the yellow color and the Indian head logo.

We took the canoe to Rice Creek Regional Parks, which has 5 lakes and is about 10 miles away from our home. When we got there, we looked around to see where the best place was for us to put the canoe in and shove off. Peltier Lake was the lake we chose. I must interject at this point that I don't know anything about canoing and I was freaking out about the possibility of tipping. We started to paddle our way out into the lake and we got the hang of rowing pretty quickly. We chose to do a little fishing. The sun was hot and the water was still by the shoreline. It was beautiful!

After fishing a little while, we grew hungry and decided to go to back to the landing and eat lunch. We were having a good ol' time as we paddled along the shoreline and then BAM!, the wind wooshed in and took us captive! One could think it was the perfect storm!

We fought the storm for a little time and finally gave in. The wind picked up steadily, and we worked hard at steering the canoe. We eventually landed on a lake-house dock on the complete opposite side of the lake that we were aiming for to begin with.

We tied the canoe to the dock and walked up the steep hill to let the home-owner know we were stranded. They weren't home, but Ed noticed a neighbor pulling out of the driveway and stopped her to share our mishap and ask her for a ride to the landing. We were blessed because she was so incredibly helpful. I got the truck from the landing while Ed stayed with the canoe.

After I got back to Ed, we carried all the equipment and canoe up the crazy-steep hill; packed the truck up, tied the canoe to the roof, and decided that we wanted to have a picnic in the truck at the Peltier Lake parking lot. We decided to fish from shore after that. We learned a few things. We learned that a 25 mile an hour wind is too hard for canoe beginners, we need a trailer, and it's nice to get your feet wet in new activities, no matter what the possibilities are!