For our 8th anniversary, I asked my wife what she wanted to do for the special day. And without hesitation, she said "I want to float the river"...
...And I fell in love all over again...
With two year old twins and a one year old, we have floated the river together once in the past 3 years. So with Grandma babysitting, we felt like we were back out in Montana again.
It was an odd morning, with a mysterious layer off dense fog that hovered about 10 feet above the river. This created pretty challenging conditions as lines were impossible to run in the rapids and big rocks had a tendency to sneak up real fast. We did pretty well on one specific fly that the fish couldn't resist.
We took our time and had a really nice stream side lunch as the fog lifted and the day was really starting to shape up...until the skies started to darken. This particular valley is notorious for summer storms to sweep in out of nowhere and I have paddled through a bad storm before. It really sucked. Trying to avoid this, I picked up the pace, but it was of no use. With still another 1-2 miles left the first thunderclap roared over our heads. After a few more, I made my way to the bank to wait it out. The problem with waiting it out was daylight was quickly falling and the only thing worse then paddling the last rapid sets in a lightning storm, was paddling the last set of rapids, in a lightning storm, in the dark. So as the last two fishing guides drifted by on the river, I figured we had to go for it. Being last guy out is not always fun.
My wife, God bless her, was a great sport. I think I definitely was more nervous than her as the lighting lit up all around us floating liking ducklings down the river. And just when I thought it couldn't get much worse, that damn fog settled in again for the last 3/4 mile. I didn't even think fog could exist in the rain, during a storm, but I'll be damned if it didn't just pile onto the current situation. Stupid. Needles to say, things weren't going well.
As we paddled the last 500 yards into the take out, the rain conveniently stopped and the storm began to lift. It felt like a mockery. But somehow once we made it to shore, it was an easy thing to almost laugh off. With no rain jackets, we were completely soaked to the bone and the boat had about 4" of water in the bottom. Spencer just shook her head and laughed. I've seen that exact same expression a few times before..and it probably wont be the last.
So Happy Anniversary, sweetie. I'm just glad this wasn't "my" idea.
