Flippin Out About Floating the Buffalo

My parents are very strict compared to other parents when I was growing up. For example, I had to be in bed on week nights by 9:00pm no matter what. One thing that they wouldn’t let me do that always made me so mad was floating the Buffalo. The Buffalo River is very close and all of my friends would go during the summer. Fast forward to now and my brother wanting to go spend the day on the Buffalo with our nephews.

My nephews, my brother, and me before floating on the Buffalo

When the morning came for our trip I was so, so excited! I had waited so long to get to spend a fun and relaxing day just floating along. We took two canoes. We put the first canoe in and it went floating down the river without a hitch. Then came our canoe with three people in it. Within seconds of getting in the canoe we were flipping over into the very cold water. My oldest nephew had trouble keeping balance in the middle and flipped us. This is the first of many times our canoe flipped. I will give you a a brief overview of our flippin good time of flippin the canoe.

Tyler livin it up on the Buffalo!

So, everyone thought it would be fun to splash me with water. When I went to splash them back my oldest nephew screamed like a little girl and flipped us over. Flip three and four were kind of scary. We came to a fork in the river and my oldest nephew (do you see a trend) wanted to take the left side which looked a little bit more difficult than the right side. It was going good until we ran smack into a dead tree and flipped over. Once I was in the water the current kept sucking me under the tree. When I was able to get free my nephew threw me a life jacket after I informed everyone I couldn’t swim. The fourth flip was when we were trying to get the canoe to land so we could get in. It hit a tree and flpped over and hit me in the head! That’s not even the worse part. The lifejacket strap got caught around my neck!

My brother just floating along!

Now, I have talked all about the scary flips, but it was a lot of fun. We stopped and did some swimming. We also stopped and had a lunch that consisted of turkey and soggy bread. My nephews loved the soggy bread so much they ate the entire loaf, weird I know!

Never ride in a canoe with Bo!!!

Guess, now I realize why my parents were so hesitant to let me float the Buffalo. One thing that I know that I is the next time I will wear a real life jacket and not to be in the same canoe as my oldest nephew!!! We lost 1 paddle, 1 chair, 1 sunglasses, and 3 flip floppies. I gained 15 bruises and a fun Saturday!