We're HOME

We pulled out just before 8:00 am on Thursday loaded down with  4 canoes, 3 kayaks and 13 people. Four rode in the truck pulling the horse trailer which was carrying the boats and 9 in the van pulling the camper. We also had 3 tents loaded and numerous coolers with enough food to last for 3 days. Mark, Ruth, Fedi and I were in the truck which Fedi was driving and Fedi's GPS took us to a Baptist church about 40 minutes away from where we were suppose to go. Those 40 minutes back to where we went wrong and then the 40 minutes extra ended up getting us to the campground after 7 hours of driving instead of the 5and a half. The van load made it to our camp at the Pulltite campground in Missouri by 2:00 pm, set up camp along side Current River and enjoyed a brisk swim in the VERY brisk water.  When we arrived they helped us set up camp. The horse trailer had a shredded tire which was not discovered until we arrived and by the time Ruth and Fedi's tent was set up Mark, Joan and Fedi had the tire changed with the new spare. Fedi went hunting for firewood and brought back plenty of good dry logs which he chopped up with his axe. We cooked supper over the fire and that was delicious. At 8:30 pm we hiked up to the ranger station to listen to a talk giving by a ranger on the history of the area. It was very interesting. There is no electricity at this camp ground but we had our generator and charged up the batteries on the electric generator and used that to cool the horse camper during the night and make coffee on Friday morning. What a blessing to have a fresh brewed cup of coffee waiting on a primitive camping trip. There is NO cell service, NO internet service anywhere in the area so on the way to where we were heading out on the river we stopped at a gas station that had a little cell service so Joan, Diane and I could try to get our messages and respond. Joan and Diane were able to get their phones working, mine would not. We arrived at Aker's ferry around 10:00 am unloaded the canoes and kayaks, parked the truck and trailer and were on the river by 10:30 am. The river is named correctly. The current was strong and the canoes moved fast. We had a ball with our 7 boats and 13 people flying along. I did not take the camera but Diane sent these pictures. Below is our group minus Diane who was taking the picture on our lunch break.

Joey also took pictures and sent these pictured below. The first couple are of the people that had to ride in the horse trailer on the way to the canoe drop off.

 Below we are launching the canoes from Aker's Ferry.

 And we're OFF, the next few pictures are of us floating away.

 We saw beaver, river otter, ducks with ducklings and a doe coming down to the river to drink. We found a cave that we could take the canoes into and the second room of the cave was a big spring of water coming up under our canoe pushing us out and back into the river.

 Of course there were rope swings every so often and of course they had to be used.

We also saw caves above the water level that had to be explored.

Since Mark and I didn't try the rope swings or the cliff jumping we made it back to Pulltite before the rest. Diane took some video of the cliff jumping.
That evening just Mark and Fedi went to the ranger talk. Ruth and I had an early night and I'm not sure what the rest did as I was sound asleep. Friday was a long active day. Saturday morning (today) Fedi had the fire going, breakfast was cooked then we packed up camp and left. The van load packed up then went to Alley Springs, the 7th largest spring in Missouri. This spring happens to put out 81 MILLION gallons of water a DAY.  

When we got home the kids had a HUGE suprise, for Father's Day they got all the manure moved from the front and replaced 2 of our fenclines that run between paddocks. Both are now very secure and look amazing. They got all of this done this morning starting at 8:00 am and finishing by 1:00 pm. What an amazing present!