A River Story in Five Parts

Part One - Wherein Serenity plays Chicken with a Bull

It should be noted from the beginning that Rob and I had a major Middle Child Moment on this trip.
We have both kayaked this stretch of the Shenandoah River before.   In fact this was Rob's fifth trip.  I'd only been once, and that without children.  Gideon is thirteen and has been a few times, is quite adept at handling a kayak and perfectly capable of getting himself down the river.  Gavin is five.  This was his first experience on the water.  Serenity is eleven and has been down the river once before, but not since she was Gavin's age--when she just sat in the middle of a canoe and enjoyed the ride.

On this trip, in addition to our three oldest children, we were traveling with my sister, Kayla, her five-year-old son Josh and my father.  We'd brought our own kayak and then rented one more kayak and two canoes, the plan being that each five-year-old would sit in a canoe with two adults or an adult and a Big Kid and the other two adults/Big Kids would take the kayaks.  Now clearly, given Serenity's lack of experience, she should have spent the day in a canoe, or at the very least been given instruction before setting off in a kayak. This, however, is where the Middle Child Moment comes into play.  Being focused on Keeping the Five Year Old Alive and in some part of our brains thinking "Gideon is great in a kayak; Big Kids know how to kayak," when we arrived at the river bank and the Big Kids asked "can we take the kayaks?!" we responded, "sure!" and sent them on their way.  Like idiots.

In our defense, it should also be noted that the Shenandoah is a pretty lazy river.  I just want to make that clear right up front here.  There are some small rapids, but we are not talking about the Snake River or something here.  People go down this thing on inner tubes.  We weren't throwing her into Expert Level Kayaking or anything.  Still...a little instruction might have been prudent.

Now, Serenity is a very bright girl and frequently picks things up very very quickly.  Kayaking, sadly, is not one of those things.  It very quickly became clear that she had no idea what she was doing.  Gideon began trying to help her out and somehow in that exchange, he ended up holding both his and her paddles.  In a moment of silliness she began paddling with her hands, quickly getting caught up in the current and moving rapidly away from Gideon and her paddles.  We all called to her to knock it off and get her paddle.  She was laughing off our concerns, when she looked up and mid-laugh began screaming "ahh!  Wait!  Stop!  Help!"

The current was pulling her toward the shore where two cows, their calves, and a large black bull were wading in the water.  The cows looked up at her and mooed, loudly.  You don't really realize how loud a cow moo is until you are rushing, uncontrollably toward one.   At this point, I had no idea what to do.  I was far enough away that I couldn't stop her and paddling toward her would probably just result in our canoe getting swept into the current too.  I didn't even know what to tell her to do, since she didn't even have a paddle of her own.  All I could think was "how is a bull going to respond to being rammed by a kayak?!"  And I knew the answer was probably not very pretty.

Fortunately cows are smarter than us and when they realized her trajectory wasn't changing, they almost visibly sighed and rolled their eyes and climbed out of the water.  Crisis averted, by the superior instincts of cows.


Part Two - Wherein we do not drown

Leaving the cows, and the shore, and restoring Serenity her paddle, I begin, belatedly, trying to impart a few basic instructions to her.  She isn't listening at all, and I am getting frustrated.  She has just veered off into a side culvert which I know she is going to get stuck in, when I hear Rob from the back of the canoe instruct me to "Zip up Gavin's life vest."
"What?" I turn around and see that Gavin's vest is, in fact, unzipped and then turn forward to see Gideon bobbing into the one patch of fairly rocky rapids on the whole run.  Crap!  We are already at the rapids and my five-year-old, who CAN'T SWIM is wearing an unzipped life vest.  I begin fumbling with the zipper, but it won't connect and as I finally connect the two pieces I hear Rob shouting, "we're there! You have to turn around" and I grab my paddle and turn forward, shouting to Gavin to finish zipping himself up as I steer the front of the canoe straight into the pulse of the waves.  We soar down the first crest, like the first plunge in a roller coaster and the water flies into my face and over my head.  The tip of our canoe rises back up out of the water though and just as the elation of realizing we've made it through the first jump and are still upright is sinking in, suddenly we're halfway over the second jump and we aren't upright anymore and we are in the water and the canoe is upside down and Gavin is right there and I'm grabbing him and trying to keep both our heads above water and our feet pointed downstream.  He is terrified and screaming and thrashing and I can feel him pulling me down and I know that what I am supposed to do is push him away and trust his life jacket to keep him above water.  But he is my baby and he is terrified and I am not even totally sure his jacket is properly fastened and there is not way in Hell I am pushing him away from me.  Instead I am trying to calm him down as each wave is slamming into his wide open mouth as he's screaming and I'm telling myself that it's OK--it's a mild river, these are mild rapids, we'll just float it out and hit the calm part soon and everything is OK.  Even though I know I'm supposed to keep my feet pointed downstream, they keep scrambling for ground and finding none, except for a large rock, which slams into my knee with a sharp sting that tells me that to expect blood.
Rob is right next to us, one hand above his head gripping the wet bag that holds our camera, cell phones and car keys and I'm amazed he had the presence of mind to grab it.  He's trying to reassure us, but the shock of the cold water and the waves slamming over his head result in a stream of language that sounds like, "We're *gasp* O *gasp* K *gasp* every *gasp* thing *gasp* is *gasp* fine" and all those gasps are totally negating the words between him.
We do quickly exit the rapids and I manage to trade Rob Gavin for the wet bag, since I'm not sure how much longer I can keep struggling with him.  The water is much deeper than usual and while I feel like I should be able to reach the bottom by now, it is still several feet below me.  And the tide beyond the rapids is strong.  I'm trying to swim to the shore, where there is a little campground, but there is no way I can fight the current while pulling Gavin.
We miss the campground, but manage to get Rob and Gavin onto the rocky cliffs that rise above the river.  A father and son who saw us capsize paddle out from the campground to help, and so does Gideon, who had managed the rapids beautifully.  Rob calms Gavin down, while the strangers and Gideon manage to collect the canoe, our oars and myself from the water.  Gavin is, very reluctantly, coaxed back into the canoe and paddled to the campground where the family of our rescuers present him with potato chips and bottles of water and he is very quickly back to normal, throwing rocks in the water and chasing cicadas around the shore.
I'm still shaking and unable to sit still, and also worried about Serenity, so I walk back up river to where we left her.  She was in fact stuck in that culvert and my dad and sister had been spending all this time trying to get her unstuck.  I share our adventure, which somehow does not convince the rest of our party to walk their boats around the rapids.  Instead they hand me all their backpacks and coolers (so those don't get lost if they capsize as well), and somehow I am convinced to let Serenity get back in the kayak!  To her credit, she did manage her way through the rapids completely upright.  Her one triumph of kayak navigation for the day.


Part Three--Wherein Serenity's Triumph Fades
After collecting ourselves on the shore for a moment, we decide to reconfigure the boating arrangements.  Gideon wants to take a turn in the canoe and knows Kayla wanted a turn in a kayak, so he offers her his.  Serenity, feeling confident from the rapids wants to continue in her kayak and we agree to let her.  Gavin wants to ride with Grandpa, so he gets into a canoe with Gideon and my dad.  Kayla decides she's going to take Josh in her kayak, the rental one is roomy and she's pretty sure she has room for them both.  Serenity had asked if she could start out and, thinking we were all about to leave, I had told her "yes, but be cautious and don't go too far ahead."  Everyone is taking so long getting settled and back on the water though, that I realize suddenly that she is almost out of my line of sight.  So, Rob and I shout to the rest of our party that we are going to follow her and leave them on the shore, still sorting out who is riding where and possibly a seat short.  Because, as before noted, we are not very smart.

And this is the part of the trip where I remember how nice it was to kayak just the two of us the last time we went.  I spend the next few miles, half frantic about the fact that I can't see Serenity beyond occasional glimpses of her rapidly spinning bright yellow oars which I swear she is using to speed paddle away from us like the river run is some kind of highly competitive race track, and at the same time worried about the rest of our group who are so far behind us that we can't see them at all.

Once we finally caught up to her, Serenity was moved into a canoe, where she should have stayed for the rest of the trip.  We waited until the rest of the group caught up to us and for a while enjoyed a peaceful float down the river.  Serenity was so very pouty about being stuck in a canoe though, that eventually my sister offered to trade her spots and we very stupidly agreed to put her back in a kayak, with very very strict instructions to STAY WITH THE GROUP and BE RESPONSIBLE.  This time, however, she ended up in the rental kayak, which is harder to steer and staying with the group and being responsible wasn't as much of a problem as keeping her kayak upright and pointed forward.  The rental is not THAT MUCH harder to steer, but maybe she was tired...I don't know.  In any event, this period of the trip involved her managing to go BACKWARDS down the second roughest patch of water on the river (which of course capsized her) and getting stuck against a sand bar where she managed to fill her entire kayak with water.  Rob was in the other kayak and stayed with her through all her trials, but he was getting mightily frustrated with her.

Part Four--Wherein we encounter snakes and spiders 
With all this drama we pulled into the first available beaching spot.  Taking the opportunity to bail out all the boats and get everyone a snack and a chance to stretch their legs and calm their breath.

Serenity was very flustered from all her kayaking fiascoes and Kayla invited her to come relax and swim with her and Josh.  Wearing life vests, they lazily floated along in the very calm current near our little beach.  Until the current became not so calm and they began to realize they were being pulled into rougher water.  It's surprising how strong a current can quickly become.  These were just baby rapids, but still not exactly comfortable for bare legs and small children to be bouncing along.  Realizing they needed help, my dad and I hopped into our canoes, Gavin in front of me in mine and headed down river, Gideon and Rob following in kayaks.  The first series of small rapids led almost immediately into a second series, so there wasn't a good place for docking.   My dad pulled his canoe up next to a tree and I pulled mine in right next to his.  Kayla was beginning to look pretty distressed and we were trying to help her direct herself toward us, when I looked up and noticed a very large, shiny silver snake perched on the branch just inches from Gavin's face.  I don't know enough about snakes to identify poisonous from not, but I did know this wasn't one of the handful of safe snakes I am familiar with.  I remembered earlier, when we were pinned against the rock cliff after capsizing our canoe, hearing someone shout at Gideon, "hey kid!  That's a Copperhead!  Get away from there!"  And those words kept echoing in my head.  "That's a Copperhead!  Get away from there!"  I began frantically trying to back up my boat, but I was caught in the branches and the boat wouldn't move.  I couldn't go backwards, I couldn't get purchase to push sideways, and my efforts were jostling the branch, causing the snake to coil and pose to strike.  Suddenly my dad managed to move the branch that was blocking me and my canoe shot backwards into the current and out of reach of the snake.

Taking just a moment to gasp a sigh of relief, I stayed long enough to watch Kayla, wincing from the rocks she'd been banged against, lift Josh into my dad's canoe and climb in after him, before turning to find Serenity.  She'd gone down the next bit of rapids, but without trying to buffer a small child, she'd been able to maneuver herself more adeptly and was completely unharmed and smiling, declaring it the best part of the trip.  Pulling off to the side, we brought her into our canoe and as we pushed away from the shore, we brushed against another tree branch.  I cringed, remembering the snake and then realized that jostling the branch had caused half a dozen ENORMOUS, ugly spiders to rain down into our canoe.  On my head, under my seat, climbing up my oar...  I screamed and began thrashing for just a minute, before realizing that I was in a canoe, then thought maybe tipping it over would be the best plan, then remembered the skittish fiver-year-old on board and instead began quickly brushing them overboard.  The rest of the trip I was sure I felt them crawling all over me and occasionally one would reappear, which didn't help.  Gavin sat in the middle of the canoe with a large rock he'd taken from the shore and would calmly smash them and then rinse his rock over the side.  He doesn't like rapids, but he has no problem with creepy crawlies.  In fact, that snake that almost ate him inspired "the Best Dream Ever" later that night.

Part Five--Wherein All's Well that Ends Well
The rest of the trip was entirely uneventful and pretty much exactly how we had expected the whole trip to go.  We saw turtles and dragonflies.  Serenity sat happily in my canoe and helped row.  We all got a little sunburned, but not too bad.  Gideon got a nice blister on his thumb, but he'll probably survive.  I'll be limping for a day or two with this skinned and bruised knee, but it's not big deal.   No one, in the end, got trampled by a bull, drowned in the rapids, or bitten by a snake.  We arrived back at the rental company three hours later than expected, but no one had sent out any Search Parties yet (despite the fact that Grandma--at home with the two-year-olds--had called to see if we'd been heard from.)

I'm not sure what the moral of the story is.  Maybe that the Cripps Family should not generally be allowed to take children into Nature.  Or maybe, as Gideon and I were trying to convince Serenity, as she was bitterly dragged defeated from the water with her kayak full of mud--that Comedy is just Tragedy plus Time.  Or maybe it's just that we were all very lucky and had another great adventure, which in a day or two will be a fully Happy Memory to be cherished for years.