Chain o Lakes State Park...A Day on the Water!

 One of the things Ryan looked forward to the most about our camping adventures was cooking over the fire, so this past Saturday morning, he got up early and headed out with his coffee and the cast iron skillet to make a proper camping breakfast.

I slept. (He loves getting up early and making breakfast. I love sleeping in. It's a win-win for everyone.) I did wake up sporadically and took pictures from the bed. LOL!!

I ventured forth long enough to eat, but the bugs were out in full force, so I didn't stay long after breakfast!! :) 

One thing we had learned about Chain o Lakes is that they have a 9 lake paddle challenge. The park itself has 9 lakes that are strung together by channels (plus a few more that aren't connected) and you can canoe/kayak all nine if you want. It's about a five mile journey, and you can take pictures along the way to prove you did the whole thing, and then you can purchase some kind of souvenir to celebrate your upper body strength.

Here's the problem.

Unless you have an entourage to pick you up, if you start at one end and paddle to the other, you have no way to get back to the starting point unless you paddle all the way back or carry your watercraft down the road. So apparently most people start at the middle lake (where you can rent a boat if you need to) and paddle one way and come back...and then maybe on a different day, they do the other half. Either way, you're paddling 10 miles instead of 5, but if you don't do it all at once, it's less daunting. 

We took Fletcher, our inflatable kayak, and drove from our campsite to the boat launch to begin our journey through five of the lakes!

We started out at Sand Lake, which is the lake that has the beach we'd visited the night before. We paddled through a long and picturesque channel that looked like a hiking trail...in the water. It was covered on both sides by trees and brush and was so beautiful!

From there, we emptied into Bowen Lake, which was also beautiful and almost glassy!

We went through a short channel and emptied into Dock Lake:

The next channel was long and narrow (like only wide enough for one boat) and full of lily pads and brush. It was also full of 90 degree twists and turns. It was an ADVENTURE!

We made it through and ended up in Long Lake, where we took a wrong turn and ended up paddling the ENTIRE lake on our way to the final lake in this half of the challenge. But we got to see some turtles sunning themselves, and we got in a little extra exercise, so yay!

We finally got back on track and went to Sucker Lake, which is technically the starting point of the challenge.

Then we had to paddle back! We did at least five miles that day with the there-and-back of the first half.

I told Ryan that when we launched out, I figured we would be the Cousin Eddies of the lake...our there in our inflatable kayak, but much to our surprise, we were the coolest kids on the water. We lost count of the number of people who paddled by and asked questions about how we liked the kayak and how it was holding up to use. So many of them said they were tired of hauling and storing traditional kayaks, and they found the inflatable route super appealing. Who knew??

By the time we got back to our campsite, Ryan's fabulous breakfast cooking had worn off, so we had something to eat, and then we decided to bike to the Stanley Schoolhouse to check it out. It's this amazing one room schoolhouse (in the park) that was used clear up until the 1950s! 

There was a trailhead right next to the schoolhouse, and it was only about a mile loop, so we decided to hike it real quick before biking back. First of all, I was NOT wearing hiking shoes, and secondly, the bugs were INSANE. I wish we had a video of us hiking this because both of us were literally marching down the trail, waving both our arms around our heads with much gusto. It was not enjoyable in the least. But it was funny! (And the trail was pretty!)

And then it was back to camp to make hamburgers for dinner. Ryan wanted to cook them over the fire and he did...finishing JUST as the rain started again.

The bugs got so bad again, so I went inside, and my prince of a husband stayed out in the rain, under an umbrella, to roast my marshmallow to perfection! I love him!!

And then we rested inside. Bug-free.