Pops! You made me laugh!!!! I'd forgoten about mine til I read yours. Twenty nine (?) years ago, my best friend, my brother and I decided to do a canoe trip. We all had been on trips with the boy scouts and family, etc., BUT never had planned our own and lead it ourselves. What was the big deal about that, right? We had a 17' grumman for the three of us. The Rock River ran within 3 blocks of my parents house so our plan was to drive the car to a community up stream about 60 miles and trip down. All we had was a road map to navigate by. We didn't take a tent - just a tarp. Food was in paper bags. Cloth sleeping bags. No sleeping pads. It was quite the adventure. WE slept under the tarp with the food between us to protect it from the animals. I woke one night with a racoon on my chest eating bread. It tooks us days laonger than what we thought. My folks had called the sheriffs department out of concern for us. We ran into inclimate weather, dams we weren't expecting, a whole bunch of things.

This year I went on a canoe trip with my brother. Our first together since that time. My friend and I still haven't been on one together since. I sure did learn a lot on that trip

Posted by Ken E. Brown on November 16, 1999 at 10:05