On the Water

Over the summer, my father and brother bought a pair of Kayaks. Having finished his Master's program, I think that dad wanted to get a new hobby, something that he had picked up a couple summers ago. They've been out on them a couple of times, as have I, over the past couple summers, taking kids out on Kayaking trips as cabin groups or classes. It's a fun sport.
Dad and I went out in ours today, on the Winooski river. We put in near one of the main roads, and paddled down to Lake Champlain and back, about four miles in all. It was a good little trip. Dad commented that it was interesting to go down a river, and it makes one realize how much of Vermont is not built over. When you're driving on the roads, you see a number of signs that people are there. Here, however, there were entire streatches of forest that was untouched, even right in the city of Burlington. It was very relaxing. We saw a couple birds, Herons and Kingfishers, ones that we hadn't seen in a while, and a couple of turtles basking on floating logs.
At the mouth of the river, there's a bike bridge that links the Colchester and Burlington bike paths. A couple of kids were jumping off of it. Looked like a lot of fun. I'll have to do that sometime...
I think that the main thing that struck me is how at peace everything was. The water was calm, and the only thing that could be heard was the bubbling of my paddle in the water. I wasn't even really thinking of the world outside, politics or anything. Just of my friend Hillary, various songs that related to water, and the thrill of being outside, with almost nothing to worry about. The conclusion to my thoughts: I think that it hit me then- We are so lucky to live the way we do, to do the things that we do, without worry of getting shot, killed, attacked, blown to pieces or something like that. Out on the water, everything is calm.

My friends Jen and Sean were married tonight. They had intended to have a regular wedding here in Vermont, on the Norwich Campus, but because their families kept trying to interfere, they decided to go out to Las Vegas to get married. So, over webcam, me, my mother, father and sister watched as they got married at 9:00 pm EST. Congradulations!

And, it was my cousin Carlie's first birthday earlier this week. We had a bit of a get together with the family, which was good. She's now walking, and doing many weird things, like walking up to someone, stating BAH and walking away. She's getting weird, and that's good.