The boating adventure of a lifetime...

Of all the fun we had with my Mom while she was visiting... I had to save the best story for the last. This will be one of those stories we tell our children and their children for generations to come.

Saturday night my bff and her husband (we will refer to him as "the captain" to protect the innocent) invited us to dinner at the Sandbar Restaurant (we didn't know how ironic that would turn out to be later that night). The teenager protested and didn't want to go, but we forced him and made him feel guilty about spending time with his Nene so reluctantly he went. You know how much fun a reluctant teenager is to be with.

So we were excited, it is one of our favorite places to go out. It is right on the Snake River, and we were going just before dusk, so we might catch the sunset on the water.

Dinner was wonderful as we anticipated. And "the captain" invited us out for a stroll up the river on his boat. That sounded like a fun trip and we could catch the sunset while we were out there.

So we go down to the dock and help him put the boat in the water...

and the "all aboard"!

The boat is pretty new to "the captain" and you can see the thrill on his face... he was really excited to take us out.

The teenager, still really reluctant to hang out with us, tagging along. But we were convinced at some point he was going to break down and smile and have a good time.

The captain was a good driver and it was smooth sailing...

I am not a boat person, but I love the water, and it was really fun being on it... as long as I wasn't responsible for anything. So I took it upon myself to be the trip historian.

The sun was beginning to set, and the colors were changing over the water...

It would be a big part of the log if I could get some nice pictures of the sunset...

But my strong silent mysterious man would not let me stand up to get a clear shot of the water over the railing... I was bummed out, but obedient to his instruction, reluctantly (wonder where the teenager gets it from?).

See... I knew he would break down and have a fun time...

Just as the sun dropped behind the horizon... and it seemed we were the only ones on the river....

The boat stops and throws us forward in our seats (really good thing I was sitting down)and all we hear is a horrible, terrible, loud scraping noise... and the engine stops dead!!!!

What was that?????

We had hit a sandbar in the middle of the river, and instead of being made of sand, it was rocks and gravel...

The captain very carefully checked to make sure everyone was not hurt, and calmed us all down...

Then he was mortified...

he had seen the ripples in the river which would indicate shallow water, but didn't react in time to miss it. At this point he was really beating himself up.

One by one, we all got out of the water and began to attempt to push the boat off the sandbar, to no avail.

At first it seemed we might be making headway, but after some time we realized it was pretty stuck and we didn't have enough strength between us to muscle it free.

It wasn't all doom and gloom, we kept up our spirits and prayed together.

We were optimistic everything would be just fine.

After a few hours when it was really really apparent we were not getting that boat off the sandbar, we began to try and use our cell phones to call for help.

The biggest delima for the captain was who to call, you see he was still feeling embarrassed and ashamed for being in this predicament, so we waited for his approval on who the 1st call would be to, then when we finally decided to just call the authorities since they didn't know us... we couldn't get cell service.

So the men waded across the river to an island that was a higher elevation and attempted some calls. They got through, but got cut off before they could get a full message out for directions to rescue us.

Apparently at some point, one of the homes on the river must have made a rescue call for us, as the sheriff arrived and could holler out to us from the shore that he was getting a boat out to us.

After many hours went by, and the realization that we would have to abandon ship... we boarded the rescue vessel. Loaded with 6 of us and 2 rescuers the boat over heated and bogged down, this made me more scared than I was waiting on a marooned boat in the dark, in the middle of the river... it sounded like evinrude the little mosquito that operated the boat in "The Rescuers" when he ran out of energy! but we were finally able to float backwards down river to a boat ramp at someones home, where the sheriff met us to gather our names, birth dates and security numbers and give us a ride back to pick up the car. The first attempt he took the captain and didn't make it out of the driveway because the captains drivers license had expired, so then he grabbed my strong silent mysterious man, and after running his license to make sure he didn't have any arrests or warrants, he took him to get a vehicle to come back and pick us up.

I have no idea what he will do with all the information he gathered, but we didn't get any tickets or fines that night. I couldn't get a picture of the nice sheriff, because my strong silent mysterious man thought it inappropriate since it was really dark outside and every time the flash went off it blinded everyone in a 10 foot radius for 3.5 minutes until their eyes adjusted again, apparently it was annoying everyone but me. After all I still had the important job of logging the adventure.

Had I gotten a shot for posterity, it might have gotten us a ticket to go along with it, so I refrained. But I personally think he would have had a good sense of humor about it.

The captain, bless his heart, was still feeling like crawling under a rock. And apologized over and over and over again... then came to our house on Sunday and apologized some more to my Mom, so she wouldn't go home mad and thinking he was a bad guy. We love him to death, he is such a good guy, even keeping us out til 1 am stuck on the river wouldn't change my mind about him.

The boys went back out on the river Sunday and rescued the boat. Apparently it took allot of tools, a few more muscles, and creative mechanics to get it loose.

We all had a ton of these baby tiny sea shells, rocks and sand in our shoes, but no body was hurt, no body caught pneumonia, and we all have a great adventure to tell about for years to come.

It really was an adventure of a lifetime!