74. Portage a canoe through downtown Aurora

Yesterday, Melissa's family came over to celebrate Labor Day. It was a good day. We all hung out, got Melissa's parents on Facebook, and had a cookout. Melissa's brother Mike and I have gotten into the habit that every time that he comes over we have gone out canoeing. It is a good habit to get into because both of us enjoy the activity of canoeing. The first task, (which I didn't know would be a task) was getting the canoe out of the garage. As Mike was undoing the rope that holds the canoe suspended in the garage, he didn't realize that he would need to hold onto it. This resulted in the canoe falling onto his head. Not a good start. Luckily, there was no blood or damage to the canoe. We got loaded up and got to the river. It was nice starting off going downstream. I haven't yet ventured over to the downtown area. It was nice, there were a lot of people out fishing that we were able to say hello to. We made it to the point where we would have to portage (another word for taking the canoe out of the water and carrying it around an obstacle). The city has made a lot of improvements in the last few years, one being a walking path under the main roads in Aurora, which meant, all we had to do is take the canoe out and carry it down the path to safer waters. I don't know if I was disappointed or relieved to find out that I wouldn't have to carry it up the stairs and across the street. After getting through, we canoed around for awhile. Unfortunately, after we got through downtown, the river was really rocky. On one of those rocks, we hit really hard. I got a big gash in the bottom of the canoe and took on a ton of water. We got out to get rid of some of the water, put the boat back in the water and canoed back to the portage point. After we got to that point, we realized that we would take on too much water for it to be worth canoeing the whole way back to the van. Since we were only about a half of a mile from where the van was parked, Mike volunteered to go get the van so we wouldn't have to carry the canoe the whole way back. This was a sad way to end such a joyous occasion.
For those of you wondering. The canoe is fixed. I patched it right away when we got home. All I am hoping for now is more rain to get the water level back up. One more done! Pictures will come when I get home from work today.