Sternwheeler

This mini-excursion was a Big Deal. When Shad was little, we had taken him out on a canoe at Battle Ground Lake - not in the lake, silly, but at the cabin/campground there was a little creek. It was shallow enough to walk in, so we weren't nervous about how tippy the canoe was except little Shad didn't seem to grasp the depth or depth or danger level. Jeremy was busy managing the little craft in the water, which took his full concentration, being quite tippy. I was busy with baby Camten, who was much too little to set down to take care of 4 year old Shad. So, Shad decided the best idea was to scream like he was being tortured. We drew a crowd before we could get back to shore, all curious to see what horrible things we were doing to our kids. How dare we attempt to float down the creek!! Shad, being Shad, remembers such things. He's never liked the idea of boating since. It's hard not to tease him about it. But he missed the class canoe trip... and when we were at Lake Ceour'd'lane, we missed the last boat trip... so somehow he was now 11 years old still remembering 4 year old trauma. We might have procrastinated making him new memories, but we were considering going on a Cruise, where we didn't want any of our members freaking out on the gang plank. Solution: Sternwheeler on the Columbia.

:-) What a great idea, too! We went just before school started up again on a beautiful sunny late August day. The wind blew crazy going down river (which in retrospect could have been a hint of future fun). We got to take turns at the "wheel" on the way back up - we all knew when Aidan was at the schtick, for all the quick turns. We ended with a Grand Finale of Ice Cream at the busiest-looking place in Cascade Locks. It was still windy... and we'll all remember looking at the picture that Daddy's ice cream cone tipped over right onto Camten's hat right after the picture snapped. Good times.