Craaaaaaaaawwwwwwling Down the Hooch

Let me start by saying it was not quite as bad of a river run as Martin Sheen had in Apocalypse Now and everyone is (almost) smiling about it now, but we did have a less than perfect trip on the Chattahoochee this afternoon.  As most difficult stories begin; I had the best of intentions...

I (somehow) talked the whole family into a bit of a floating trip down the Chattahoochee River in Roswell from Island Ford to Azalea Park.  I've covered this 3.5 mile section a few times before (including last week as described in Andy, Can I Put My Bullet In!!) and thought it would be perfect for us.  We hit the water with Zoe in the yellow kayak, Connor and Gretchen in a giant inflatable boat I bought right after EPIC FAIL - Attempt at Final Leg of ATL50 to try to finish up the ATL50 - Canoeing thru the Chattahoochee River NRA (which I finally wrapped up in A2A - Trip 0; Powers Island to McDonough Power Plant (We Finished up the ATL50)), and myself in my X-Factor.  It looked to be a good time.

Zoe, despite getting jammed up several times on the shoals that are present at Island Ford (she made a few friends he helped her get unstuck), was having a great time.  In fact, I have to admit one of the shining outcomes of the trip was that Zoe is interested in going out on the river again. 

Awesome!  But... let's now get ahead of ourselves.  Things really didn't go that well... 

First, the shoals really aren't very rough here, but there are MANY rocks along this section of the river.

Second, the boat I put Gretchen and Connor in is was VERY BIG.

Third, the combination of #1 and #2 really gave those two a VERY TOUGH time navigating the river. 

Without going into the full story... they eventually hit some fallen trees along the shoreline (like those shown above) and poked a BIG hole in the outer chamber of the boat.  Thankfully, the inner chamber held plenty of air and we decided to continue on down the river.  The next picture shows how sad the boat looked without the outer chamber inflated as well as our little barge that we created by holding onto each other for a little, but ultimately that was just too slow.

In fact, the phrase "just too slow" described very well the rest of the journey.  Painfully slow even!  Thankfully, we did get to see a bit of wildlife along the way and in between grumpiness we had a few moments of fun when we realized that's all we were trying to do in the first place.

I ended up towing the Titanic a good portion of the way which is probably why my arms are sore right now.  It took us 2 hours and 40 minutes to crawl the 3.5 miles of this short trip.

We finally go to the boat launch at Azalea Park and the pain didn't stop there.  My kayak flew off my rack before getting secured and nearly knocked a couple of cyclists pedaling through the parking lot.  That was the icing on the cake thankfully and getting in the air conditioned car and securing something cold to drink at a nearby QT really did lift everyone's spirits.

As the phrase goes, "it sounds bad, but it wasn't as bad as it sounds" could summarize this slow moving river run crawl.  It also was a good reminder of a lesson I learned a long time ago; don't try to make your hobbies/interests into someone else's. 

Next up, pushing on with the A2A - Paddling from Atlanta to Alabama with an 18.5 miler to firmly get us out of Atlanta and into the countryside.  I can't wait!!