Thursday, August 7, 2008

Surreal experiences



So no pics for this one yet but I'll hope to add some in the coming days.

I had a couple experiences over the past couple days on vacation that were truly amazing and for me at the time surreal.

First, my brother-in-law and I went down the creek on the kayak. The dam, had just been lowered thus the water was really rushing. About a 5 minute hike up is a waterfall. I was pretty excited about what I knew was ahead. The water was rushing like I had never seen before. After a run in with a Fisher, which is a pretty small animal a little bigger than a rat, we made our way down the waterfall (more about the Fisher at the bottom if you care) We proceeded to try and find places where we could lodge ourselves against some rocks and push against the waterfall. I realized 2 things - one I needed to tighten my shorts and two which made the previous obvious, that water was alot stronger than I was. At one point I put my leg in the water to have in thrust into a rock - needless to say this was very uncomfortable.

Second, I went for a kayak down the creek again after a thunderstorm had just passed over. Everyone else was hiding inside, but those who know me know that I don't do stuck inside very well. Plus the water is amazing so who cares what its like outside. I started down, going through the fog that was coming of the water after the storm, and the thunder from the storm now on the other end of the lake still shook the kayak. Things got a little more worry some on the way back. I went to check out my friend the fisher and the storm was pretty isolated and had come back to the cottage I left the waterfall, got in the kayak and turned the corner to come back and all I saw was dark clouds so I went full out the whole way with a lightening storm encouraging me on.

It was so cool especially the second one to sit back and just "wow" at God and his creation and how powerful He is. Both these are nothing in comparison to his strength, but I was like nothing compared to it.

So now to the Fisher story for those who care - Dave and I started looking around testing out the water and waterfalls and finding our best way around when we saw this little runt who looked not to happy that we were around. I haven't seen many of these animals around and I'm starting to understand why. It kept running around and we weren't sure what to make of it. Next thing I know he gets in the water, swims across to where we are and comes at us! Dave was right behind me, I stress was cause he bolted to the waterfall where the water likely rushed to fast for the little critter. I did the first thing that came to mind. Grabbed a stick and took a swat, he took off and we never saw him again. For all you animal lovers don't worry I didn't hit him, although if he came back again I couldn't promise I wouldn't have made sure to put all the years of sports and swinging bats and clubs at small objects into play.