It was another beautiful day in Glen Arbor, Michigan. My family and I were spending the week out of our summer to enjoy our favorite cottage on Little Glen.
After a few days of relaxing at the lake, we decided to hit the Crystal River for some quality kayaking.
Once we arrived down at the river, we each climbed into our kayaks and began our voyage. At first, everything was going smoothly, even though my Mom found out she had a small hole in her kayak. The water was just high enough for the kayaks not to get stuck in the sandy bottom of the river. Then the river got narrower and really shallow, and the bottom of my Mom’s kayak soon became filled with water. What began as a nice leisurely trip down the river, soon turned into a paddling struggle down an obstacle course filled with long pointy limbs, rocks, and areas of an inch or less of water, which easily caused a traffic jam of kayaks if you weren’t careful. It was a battle of nature and nature was winning.
As the struggling continued, we came across a long black tube-looking tunnel that was just wide enough to fit a small kayak through. I would also like to mention that in order to get through the tunnel, we had to lean way back, almost flat against our kayaks to avoid bumping our heads on the top of the tiny tunnel.
My Dad and sister went through the tunnel first followed by myself, and then my Mom picked up the rear. We were not prepared for the strong current that swept us down to the side of the river once we arrived out of the tunnel. After the three of us got our kayaks straightened out and free from the riverbank, we waited in anticipation to watch poor Mom come out of the tunnel. Minutes passed but still no Mom. Finally we heard a distressed voice coming from the other side of the tunnel yelling my Dad’s name, “John! JOOOHHNN!!” So my Dad reluctantly got out of his kayak and disappeared over the bridge to find my Mom. The whole time this happened, my sister and I thought this to be quite humorous and really wanted to watch our Mom go down the tunnel, so we started yelling words of encouragement in hopes that she would go through.
More minutes passed as we waited to see Mom come out in her kayak. Suddenly we heard a noise from the tunnel. I was thinking, “Oh boy, this is it…here she comes!” Finally, a kayak came out of the tunnel and it turned out Mom came out of the kayak because the kayak that appeared from the tunnel was empty!
Lets just say, there was a little more tension from the kayaking party once my Mom had climbed back into her wet kayak, after she had walked around the other side of the tunnel.