I’ll say this for freelance writing:  the pay’s not so hot, but the perks are pretty good.  In the past couple of weeks, my family and I have attended a minor league baseball game (Go Biscuits!), gratis, and my husband and I went on a canoe trip down the Choctawhatchee River.  I had recieved assignments to cover both of these interesting diversions for Wiregrass Living magazine, so for me, this was work.

For my husband, it was all fun.  And after the canoe trip–not our first, but our first in a long time–he confessed that he’d been bitten by the canoe bug.  I believe his actual words were, “Keep me out of Dick’s Sporting Goods for a few days or I’ll buy a canoe.”  This was a startling confession from my notoriously frugal spouse.

The New Canoe

So for a couple of weeks I dutifully tried to protect him from the economic perils of his new-found obsession, but I finally caved.  I decided that it might be another outdoor thing that we could do as a family, and that the kids would really enjoy it.  So we coughed up the $300 for a low-end canoe (can you believe that?  a bare-bones model and it was still that much…) that would hold all four of us on the 4th of July.

We took the kids back to the portion of the Choctawhatchee that we had floated while I was researching the article, and put in at the same bridge.  Now, let me just say that river people are an interesting breed.  I’m told that, as a sociological group, they are known as “river rats.”  They are not averse to beer or tattoos, and are completely unafraid to wear that string bikini after the third baby.  And the holiday brings them out in large numbers.  So before we even put the boat in the water, my children were getting an impromptu education.  As we approached the water I could hear one man saying, “Ya’ll watch y’mouths now, they’s younguns comin.”  What a gentleman.

But soon enough we were out of the crowd and drifting along in the quiet water.  Quiet except for Sissy’s repeated insistance that we go home.  For a moment, I considered beating her with the business end of my paddle.  But as soon as we pulled the canoe onto a little island of rock that the low water levels had revealed, and let her get out and play in the current with her brother, she was sold.

Trying to catch a teeny-tiny frog.

The rest of the afternoon was the stuff of family fun legend.  We laughed.  We splashed.  We even found a rope swing to play on.  And we floated along the glassy waters as they pushed on toward the Gulf of Mexico.

When we reached the bridge where we would end our trip, and take the boat out of the water, we were greeted with another large tribe of river people.  Who had brought a large grill for their 4th of July cook-out.  Underneath a bridge.

But all in all, I’d say we’ve found a new family pastime.  On the way home, limp and exhausted, Sissy asked when we could go canoeing again.

Soon, Sissy.  Soon.