Weekend Canoe Trip

Photo: Nikolai and I after the canoe trip through the river and on Three Island Lake, near Turtle River.
Weekend Canoe Trip
By Allan Olson
Every weekend I try to find something fun to do – at least for one of the two days and this weekend, Nikolai a friend of ours and I ventured out for a canoe ride.
On Saturday morning I started out by cleaning my van – a full 30 minutes later, I finally accomplished this task, then it was time for the weekly garbage run that took another good sum of time while I filled the van with bags of garbage and made my run to the dump.  With the morning work out of the way I had a delicious ham omelet breakfast prepared by my wife and then set to grabbing a few supplies I would need for my adventure.
While the original plan was just for myself and a friend to go, Nikolai also ended up joining the party and truthfully it was a good thing he was with as he proved himself helpful a time or two.
Our first stop was to meet someone who would take us to a canoe, then we struggled to load it on the van and figure out how to tie the canoe tight so it wouldn’t fall off in the mile drive that we had to our loading spot. Our caching partner suggested that we land on the river access to Three Island Lake, while I wasn’t convinced that it would be high enough to float us into the lake we unloaded and attempted it anyway. Thankfully after some awkward paddling we were finally out on the lake – the ducks in the river probably wondered who those strangers were that made some much noise in a canoe and wisely got out of our way. Our goal was three geocaches located on three floating bogs on the lake. We reached the first bog and ended up canoeing past it and since we had to come back this way, we decided to get it on our way back. The next stop was for a cache that the last person who had attempted it was unable to find it – we decided to try anyway. We struggled to get up on the bog and ultimately I was the one who decided to carefully work myself the 40 feet or so across the bog to the destination. I peered around the tree and moved a few branches but since I wasn’t too keen on getting wet, I didn’t search too hard before I declared it to be gone and we shoved off again. The next stop was another bigger floating bog, my canoeing partner and I both got off the canoe while Nikolai stayed behind as he had no water boots. A short time later she managed to find the cache and we shoved off again to the next cache. We canoed around the bog until we could find the closest distance at a spot where we felt we could land and we set our course for about 200 feet across the bog. I carefully picked my way across finding as many solid spots as I could before spotting the cache in a tree on the bog. On the way back I found a spot that wasn’t very solid and I sank into the bog nearly to the top of my boot – thankfully no water came over the top and my feet remained dry. After two hours of paddling (round trip) we made it back to solid ground and loaded the canoe on the van once again – this time we were able to load it much quicker and Nikolai proved helpful again assisting us in getting the canoe on the van. We returned the canoe to the owner and then found the two caches in his yard before venturing on our next mission a two-mile walk in the Movil Maze.
The Movil Maze near Turtle River is a great for those that want to get in shape or are in shape – for the rest of us – it sucks. The hills are steep and the trails are windy but eventually we found the caches we needed. I only needed two in the park and my caching partner needed four. The day flew by and we found two others outside of the park  - one of which was for the challenge we were working on. It was a tiring but fun day.
On Sunday – it was a day of rest. My physical activity was pretty limited – so limited my pedometer didn’t even reach 500 steps out of the 10,000 I shoot for each day.
This weekend there are a couple things in the works and we will see how it plays out.

Thanks to everyone for reading, and as always, please be safe while enjoying your favorite outdoor recreational activity and on the lakes, and remember to take pictures to preserve a lifetime of memories. Remember to drive safely, and watch out for those buses carrying our children. Thanks for reading, and have a great week! For more of my columns visit: http://allan-crazykids.blogspot.com.

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