urban paddling

Will and I, if you didn't know, have a canoe. I love this canoe. It's a gigantic and heavy aluminum canoe, the kind that was made by an airplane manufacturer after the WWII boom. It's indestructible (although I did once see the same sort of canoe wrapped around a big boulder at the bottom of some falls in Minnesota). Anyway, the canoe hasn't seen much action in Utah--just a few paddles in Little Dell and an adventure down the Green River.

Now we are here in a city of rivers, in a land of lakes. Now that we have finally moved into our apartment and have our stuff out of storage (I have way too many books, by the way, something I have just learned after packing and moving and unpacking them all), we were able to get the canoe onto the water.



There is a lake about a five-minute drive from our house. This lake connects to the Rideau Canal (a world heritage site, which connects the Ottawa and Rideau Rivers); this canal was built to provide an alternate shipping route to the St.Lawrence and was all about fending off the pesky Americans. Anyway, we paddled down the canal (in a slight and sometimes shivery rainfall)and tied up our canoe right downtown.

Downtown, we ate almond croissants and protected ourselves from the rain with hot coffee. And we bought some of our weekly groceries. The farmer's market is also on the canal, so we are thinking next week we will shop by canoe. You can fit a lot of tomatoes in that canoe.



This day of canoeing and shopping makes me love my new city just a little bit. I can canoe downtown people! I miss my desert, but this is a pretty good deal.