Today we started our paddle at Eminence Ball Park, stopped for lunch at Shawnee Creek, and finished at Two Rivers. The route was about 8 miles long and took us around 3.5 hours of actual paddling—just over four hours total on the river. The current was moving quickly today, which made things more exciting.
We had three additional paddlers from our campground join us, making a group of ten in total. About a mile into the trip, Lauren and one of our tagalongs flipped their boat after hitting an eddy near a tree. That was the first of five flips we had throughout the day.
The toughest situation came when Lauren’s boat got away from us and floated downstream. Karen managed to chase it down and catch it, quite a distance downstream. We initially planned for Scotty to tow it back upstream, but the current was too strong and it was a distance downstream. After paddling hard—about 25 strokes—he barely made any progress. It was a losing battle.
We ended up pulling the boat ashore and considered portaging it along a nearby path, but the trail was far too overgrown. That led us to Plan C, which finally worked. Once we had the boat back, we discovered it was completely filled with water. After emptying it, we tied two tow ropes to it. With a lot of effort, Scotty managed to paddle upstream and return the boat to Lauren.
It’s moments like these that make our paddling trips truly memorable.
We wrapped up the day at the Dairy Shack—and honestly, that alone made the adventure worthwhile.
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