Day 6: Wednesday, July 20th James River

  • Jul 20, 2011
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On the recommendation of our friends’ father we set off for James River Southwest of Springfield, about 45 minutes away from our friends’ house.  Once again our friends were incredibly generous with their time and drove us out to the put in and then drove Scott to the take out to drop off the van and back to the put in.  Below is the information Scott gave me on the canoeing trip details.

36.2 Jamesville Bridge. Hwys. M and U. 36.3 Finley Creek, on left. 37.9 Tory Creek on left. Montague Spring, 2.5 miles up creek, reached via Hwy. O from Hwy. 65. The spring has a flow of nearly 2 million gallons per day, is used to supply a private trout hatchery and is one of the largest springs in this river drainage. 39.4 Silvet Lake Branch on right. 39.7 Hooten Town Access on right, on Hooten Town Road.

We played on the banks while the boys dropped the van off at the take out.

The kids found a fun island to play on.  The butterflies  were amazing here.  I never did get a good picture of them.  Several butterflies sat on Cody’s life vest for quite a while. Scott hypothesized that they like the color yellow.

Brooke and Cody loved getting their hats wet and then flinging the water out at us.  You can see Cody’s hat in the water in the picture up and to the right.  The cool water was much needed on the very hot day.  The water throwing escapades led to quite a bit of water in the bottom of the canoe.  Scott had forgotten his sponge to drain out the water, so he used my shirt to drain the canoe a bit.

We had put in at a tributary to the James River, Finley Creek.  Scott had to push us for a little while.  We weren’t in any hurry, which was good considering exactly two minutes into floating Cody asked for food.  We could still see our friends on the bank and we pulled to the opposite bank and ate part of our lunch, it was only 11:00.

Cody has a seat and a paddle his very own size, but he was having more fun with Mama’s paddle and Brooke’s seat.  Unfortunately these were the last pictures our little Cannon Power Shot SD 1200 took.  The Elph went for a swim while in a protective case in my life jacket.  Despite Scott’s effort to dry it out in rice for 24 hours, its display and picture taking ability never came back.  We are saddened over the loss of our Elph.

We were on the river for two hours and traveled about four miles.  Both Cody and Brooke loved hopping in and out of the boat.  We came back to home base for a nap while Scott and his friend built the kid-wash shown in Family Fun Magazine.  The kids loved hopping through it.

This was also the night that the kids’ health started to go downhill.  Cody’s eyes became progressively goopier as the day went on.  On the advice of our friends I called our pediatrician. The pediatrician’s office was able to call us in a prescription to a local pharmacy.  I didn’t think they were going to be able help us 530 miles away.  We were able to get a dose in before bed.  After his morning drops and a warm shower/ bath he was looking a lot less goopy.  Brooke unfortunately spent the entire night coughing.  I felt very bad having sickly children in the same house with a one month old.

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