Canoes!

Today we went to Bell Brook Canoe. Before we left we watched a TED talk about listening, and trying to identify the different types of noises you can hear. We also  Keeping this in mind we were to try and do this and see what we can hear at some point when we are canoeing. When we got there we found that the owners of the place we were canoeing weren't there to take us to the top of the river, so we had to wait around for a bit first. Once they got here we took another bus up to the top with the canoes. Once we had our canoes we went in one at a time. When I got in I felt a lot less stable than I did in the kayaks. It felt a lot easier to fall out of it. After a while though I got used to it. We stopped a few minutes after we were in the water to listen to our surroundings. We heard a couple different bird songs, paddles splashing in the distance, and the flow of the river. At one point there was a rope, where everyone stopped to swing from into the river. Despite the water being stupid cold, I wound up doing it anyway. When I finally dropped in I found it hard to breathe it was so cold. As I was in it I got used to it though. It wasn't the most pleasant thing, but it was still a lot of fun. I had accidentally left my watch in another person's canoe, so for the rest of the trip I didn't know what time it was. A decent few times, maybe six or seven, we got stuck in our canoes when the water got shallow. The depth of the water varied a lot. Some areas beached us while others we couldn't even find the floor with our paddles. A couple times we couldn't steer out of the way of a low hanging branch and we got a little scratched up by that. We also saw a about five turtles along the way back. Eventually at around 1:15 we arrived back where we started and ate our lunches. We didn't have much longer to eat though, since our bus was leaving at 1:30. When we got back on the bus we came there in I went ahead and wrote my recipe poem about the river, and below is what I wrote.

To make a river,

First take a layer of mud and carve a groove in it

Then add tons of cold muddy water

And mix it with rocks until the floor is bumpy

Then line the edges with trees and other plants

And add bird songs to the mix

Next add turtles, geese, fish, and various insects

Let it sit for a while and you will have a river

Optionally you can add canoes and people

Then you will have an adventure.

Me just before I land in the water