Gliding Down the River

~Sunday, July 4, 2021~

Day 385

Happy 4th 🇺🇸🎆 of July Everyone!! Hope you had a fun, but safe day doing whatever you were doing. Isn’t it awesome seeing those gatherings once again, letting loose and enjoying life!!!

We haven’t done much in the way of water activities….yes, kayaking, but in terms of a fully relaxing outing, no. So here we go…...tubing down the Platt River, about a 50-minute drive from Lake Leelanau. The scene…….well it’s the 4th of July and on a weekend no less. When we walked in at Riverside Canoe Trips,

It appeared they had all hands on deck with how crazy busy it was, and the young staff, very friendly. We made reservations ahead of time where you have a 2-hour or 3-½ hour option though they don’t hold you to an exact completion time. It just depends where they drop you off at the start. For us…it was the 3-½ hour trip starting from the Weir to the township park at Lake Michigan. We basically drove to the end of the route where there was a large parking lot, but of course that was full, leaving the mid-dayers to park on the side of the road which wasn’t bad. We only were maybe ¼ of a mile from the end parking lot, which meant when we were finished, we’d have to walk a ¼ mile back to the truck. Since we weren’t able to park in the lot, we were afraid he wouldn’t see us waiting on the side of the road, but he did. We were scooped up along with 8 others in the cramped minivan (good thing we had showers), and headed to the Weir starting point. We were not only given our 2 tubes, but he offered us a third for our Yeti cooler, and ice to boot. As I said, very nice staff! I can’t remember the last time I went tubing. High school maybe?

The river was nearly wall to wall people with varying degrees of watercraft…..small motor boats, canoes, kayaks and tubes. But in the end we were all trying to achieve the same goal…….relax and have fun. The river itself does not have much current and makes floating down the Truckee River seem like a Class IV. But we weren’t there to rush, but to chill. The weather was perfect. What a fun thing to do on the 4th!

Arriving back at the trailer around 7:00, I was getting out of my wet clothes, including my Keen’s which look like a closed toe sandal, and noticed blood all inside my shoe. The weird thing was I didn’t feel a cut or anything, plus my feet had been very protected while on the river. But then I saw it. A leech!!! Oh my goodness and right in between my toes. At first I didn’t know what it was and tried taking it off. While in my freak out mode, I asked for Jeff to help me remove it, and would say it was pretty darn attached based on how hard it was to pull it off. Of course, my first thought was infection…..especially with that river water. But after reading up on it, they really are pretty harmless creatures. The reason you don’t feel leeches on you is they inject an anesthetic before attaching themselves. I know…..kind of gross. It dawned on me that I likely got the leach when I was floating on my stomach, where I occasionally hit lots of seaweed looking stuff in the shallower parts of the river…..a perfect hiding spot for those little critters. I’m sure I wasn’t the only casualty that day.

With all of the sun and water fun today, we were 2 wiped out people. So instead of going back to Northport for their fireworks show, we decided to do a big walk/run with Sadie, then call our peeps to wish all a Happy 4th. Great catching up with everyone. We cooked a light dinner (Jeff-sausages, me-veggie patty) and leftover mashed potatoes while listening to the fireworks which started around 10:00 p.m. And it still wasn’t completely dark, but hey you can’t have a firework show at 11:00 p.m. right? Even the SOUND of the fireworks is different from California. There never seemed to be a break in the action from start to finish, and it seemed we were hearing it all in surround sound in our little valley of an RV park.

Hoping to have a Sadie day tomorrow where she can join us maybe in Leland (FishTown). Maybe we’ll try their fish sausage!