Four Goals

When we got the canoe to the river, I had certain goals.

1. Have a good time
2. Get Handsome some exercise
3. Catch some fish
4. Keep Handsome's sneakers dry

How did we do?

1. Have a good time:
   -Yes. Handsome was actually fishing with me. He suggested a fishing competition, which I took him up on. He was choosing the spots to stop, he was choosing which way to go. Somewhere in there the two of us had a world-class splash-fight, the two of us whaling away at the water with the paddles after I “accidentally” splashed him with water while paddling. A few times. All in all we were on the water for a little more than three hours, I think, and a good time was had by all. Both. Whatever.
   
2. Get Handsome some exercise:
   - Not so much. Oh, sure, during our splash-fight he wielded a paddle with wild abandon and a certain amount of joy, but paddling from place to place … not so much. He did do a lot of waiting until I had built up a good head of steam and then shoving the blade of the paddle into the water at an angle to see if he could make a little rooster-tail. Sometimes he did make the water arc through the air like that, but more often than not he just sent us veering off towards a bank or into a submerged log. I was getting exercise, though...
   
3. Catch some fish:
   - Not so much on this one either. Not a fish was seen at all, in fact. We did hook a few trees, and once Handsome actually managed to wrap up two completely separate trees at the same time. That has to be one for the record books. Handsome lost two bobber and hook set-ups, each too high in a tree to reach from a canoe. He seems to have the strange habit of aiming at a spot that is only 10 – 15 feet away and winding up to cast like he is aiming for the other side of the Earth. I did have a bobber come off my line, somehow, but we pulled up the anchor and tracked it down. That part was actually fun.
   But for all that fishing, no fish. Again.
   
4. Keep Handsome's sneakers dry:
   -It was so close! He insisted on wearing his sneakers rather than leaving them in the jeep to stay dry. They stayed dry through all the canoeing. They stayed dry through all the fishing. They even stayed miraculously dry during our huge splash-fight! We had gotten all the way back to the Jeep, and were unloading the canoe for the ride home, and he wanted to show me something. A spider, I think. All of the sudden, SPLASH! A two-footed leap, landing right in the river.
   Did he apologize for it?
   Yes.
   Could he explain how he wound up jumping in the river, when I had just told him to be careful and keep those sneakers dry?
   Nope.

So, four goals, but only one of them met. At least a good time was had by all.

Both.

Whatever.

Talk to you later!