Adventures in Canoeing and the Princess Festival

In early June we had a trip to Colorado planned. Unfortunately, that didn't work out but we were very lucky to find an available cabin up in Heber where we could spend our vacation instead. One of the main things we had planned for our Colorado trip was canoeing at a lake so we found a place in Orem that rents canoes and got a canoe for our Heber vacation to try to make it as fun as Colorado. We tied the canoe to the roof of our Ford Expedition and took it up to Jordanelle Reservoir.

Unfortunately, the one day we had available to go canoeing, there were winds of 50-70 miles per hour so trying to canoe on the reservoir was a bit like that movie, "The Perfect Storm".  After not being able to get anywhere and just counting ourselves lucky that we weren't swamped, we gave up on canoeing. The waves just beat us mercilessly against the shore and then just pounded us over and over again. Not a great experience for Lizzy's first canoe trip.

We then tied our canoe very securely to the roof of our Expedition again and started heading back into Heber. That's when the wind gusts got even worse. We were going very slowly, just trying to make it back to Heber when a gust came along that was just too strong and it lifted the canoe up off of our roof and threw it on the road behind us. Our ropes were securely pretty tightly so in the process it ripped the handles out of the ends of the canoe, broke through the wooden bar in the middle of the canoe and ripped the roof rack right off of our car.

This was pretty unlucky but we did have some blessings that happened with this experience. There were no cars immediately behind us. The canoe landed in the lane behind us and then slid off the road and rested against a barrier on the shoulder. On this particular spot on the road there was only a barrier for a short distance and any earlier or later and it would have slid down a long hill. The next car behind us on the road was a very nice off-duty Highway Patrolman who helped us put the car inside our Expedition so we could make it back to our cabin.

Besides those few items breaking on the canoe, it was otherwise completely unharmed and the company we rented it from insisted that we owed them nothing for the damages. We were lucky it barely fit inside our Expedition so we could take it back to the cabin and then return it to the rental place.

Here's a picture canoe after being dropped onto the freeway:

Besides our not-so-fun adventures in canoeing we had a great time at the cabin. The Baileys' even made it up for an evening and we had a fun time in the cabin and playing on the rope swing outside.

At the end of June we hit the Princess Festival. It was 100 degrees outside the day we went but Lizzy had such a great time meeting all of the Princesses, it was very worthwhile.

At the end of the Princess Festival, Lizzy got a comfortable, new Cinderella dress and it turned out to be just in time for her to walk with Cinderella in the parade.

Lizzy loved the Princess Festival so much that for the next few days she wore her Cinderella dress every moment she could and spent all of her time playing "Princess Festival" with her dolls.