Life is good on Sunday

Now normally any Sunday is a good day, but this Sunday we took our new kayak out for it’s maiden voyage. Yup, we’re officially a two kayak family. SCORE!! Now what we’ve learned about the second kayak is that it’s a lot more topsy turvy than our first one. But it was on sale and it’ll work fine for a second one. 

You know how sometimes I feel like I should have lived in the 1950’s? Well I also found out that I also maybe should have lived in the 1950’s and by the river! I seriously think that I could spend every day just hanging out on the water! Yup, pretty sure.

So today I had the chance to spend the afternoon with Kyle on the Upper Iowa by Decorah and the weather was perfect! It’s a good thing we didn’t listen to the weather because I guess it had a good chance for scattered showers. Well when the other fellow kayakers heard this – they must have stayed home. Because it was a day with hardly anyone around. Which was good for us and bad for the others.

I took a couple of pictures – I know you’re shocked right? Well the first one is that of maybe a woodchuck? We couldn’t figure out why all the birds were going crazy and like they were literally loosing their minds, until we saw the woodchuck. He was sitting on a ledge and sorry to say I’m pretty sure he was eating their eggs. There was a lot of mud around him and if I was a betting girl, I’d say he knocked the nest off and found the eggs. All I know is that these birds were mad! It took a lot to snap this picture because I had to paddle up river against the current and then stand up and get out my camera. Now I’m not saying that I’m skilled – but maybe the best word would be is lucky 🙂 It was also crazy how close I was. I got a little worried that he was going to jump off the rock ledge and into my kayak for a second there so I was trying to prepare myself for that. Now honestly if you think of it, just how prepared can you be for THAT? Can’t you just picture it? I think it would be kinda funny only if it was going to happen to someone else.

While I was messing around with this, Kyle ended up pulling over and was hanging out to wait for me. I guess it took a little longer than I was expecting. 

The river is absolutely beautiful and it has a lot of barn swallows to snatch up the mosquitos. That is if their eggs are being eaten by some stray woodchuck! 

We did a quick detour when we were in Decorah after we got off the water and stopped off at Ice Cave. Now if you haven’t heard about this cave, you are seriously missing something! This cave is a State Preserve and is said to be the largest glacier (ice cave) in North America east of the Black Hills. I’ve never gone way inside before because, well maybe I’m a little chicken of being trapped in small spaces, but just sticking my head inside on this warm afternoon, you knew they were right when they said the temperature is always in the low 30’s inside. You are supposed to notice it the most on a warm July day. Today the temperature is around 80’s and the air inside feels pretty darn good. But this is as far as I’m going for today. Maybe some day I’ll see if I can join a group to explore it. 

Today was a great day and I was glad that Kyle wanted to spend it on the water hanging out with me.