DTS Canoe Trip

DTS has a news feed that I subscribe to. Apparently I'm the only person that reads the announcements from DTS, but it makes me feels in the loop. Usually I just skim over the "Who's preaching in chapel this week" posts and the brown-bag lunches, but occasionally there's a little announcement tucked away that makes my eyes light up.

So, when I checked Google Reader and saw that the Missions Department was going on a day-long canoe trip down the Brazos I was ready to sign us up. Unfortunately Danny had already made plans to go on the men's retreat at church.

Not skipping a beat, I called Jenna, and she said that I could tag along with her and Joey on the trip. But then Joey decided that studying for finals was more important than spending the day on the river. Jenna and I were torn. Could two DTS wives crash the Missions Canoe Trip?

We decided to give it a whirl and hope no one would notice we weren't students. Besides, Jenna had Boundary Water experience and I had Caddo Lake practice, so surely we could survive without our husbands for a day. Surely . . .

Here's Jenna with our overly-loaded canoe. See that over-stuffed blue cooler? I think we forgot that our husbands weren't coming with us and packed enough food for three days on the water.

Here we are before even getting our canoe in the water, probably still a little nervous hoping that we could remember all of our mad canoing skills.

We hit the water paddling and soon were way beyond everyone else. I turned around and looked at Jenna, "How the heck are we going so much faster?" I knew I hadn't been working out my arms that hard at the gym. She looked behind us and replied, "I think it's because we're going in a straight line."

And so we slowed down to enjoy the scenery . . .

The blue skies . . .

And Jenna's favorite - the cows . . .

The group stopped for lunch at the halfway point. After one group brought out their grill to cook their hot dogs on and eat their homemade potato salad, Jenna and I didn't feel so bad for packing so many chips and skittles.

This guy was our favorite. He was a dad with two kids in his canoe, two kids who were too little to paddle. So, this man oared his way to the end all by himself. They sang songs, called their mom, and laughed the whole way. We were impressed.

Here's the after picture folks. You'll notice we're still smiling. That's because we have yet to realize how sunburned our knees are. If only we knew the pain we were about to endure.

The next morning I rolled out of bed and collapsed on the floor. My knees were red, hot, swollen, and painful to look at. Who knew a sunburn could be debilitating. I called Jenna, "Are you DYING?! Please tell me that I'm not the only one who's limping!" She was sitting on the couch with ice packs on her legs. I felt better.

Apparently Jenna's sunscreen that I so faithfully slathered all over myself was expired. Nice. So, I basically spent the day rubbing oil on my arms and legs. It took a whole week before I could walk normally again.

We ended the day trip by circling up with all the other DTS canoers. The professor who lead the trip had everyone share their name, what year they were in at DTS, and what their major was. I believe Jenna and I said that we were majoring in "full-time working wives." They laughed and didn't kick us out for not being students.

Jenna also saw Blue Bonnets in person for the first time . . . and she promptly picked them. I laughed and told her she just broke the law. Shocked, she dropped the flowers like they were hot potatoes before I could snap a picture of her guilt-ridden face. "You can pick Iowa's state flower . . . that's a dumb rule," she countered.

We returned home to our husbands that day tired, refreshed from the outdoors, sunburned and knowing that while wives could crash DTS events we married our men because we LOVED doing things with them. Besides, next time I don't want to the be only one incapacitated by a sunburn.