Decided to take Craig on a canoe outing for the first time since he returned from Spain! Probably his last time! When we started out on the Etowah from the Macedonia Road Ramp headed for Grizzard Park, the weather was hot and beautiful! I actually thought we might have to hop in the river at some point in order to cool off! The first 3 hours were fun, but just ordinary! Saw some turtles, heron, ducks and other animals and the water was wonderful! We even hit a few good small rapids and one pretty good ledge that actually almost took us out of the boat! Just added a little excitement to the trip! We found a nice rocky area to have lunch and then headed out again! Around 2 o’clock, we noticed the sky was getting darker and darker in front of us! But of course, that was impossible because there was 0000000 chance of rain until possibly a 20% chance after 5 o’clock and we all know the weathermen could not be wrong! So onward we went, knowing it could not rain! That is until the thunder and lightning started! We pulled in to a small shelter under a bank and a tree! (Yes I know that under a tree isn’t the safest place but it was that or the center of the river! Nowhere else to go!) We waited a while, but no rain came, so after it looked like the clouds were breaking up, we headed out! Ten minutes later, the bottom fell out! The rain came down and we found another shelter, sort of! We were getting pounded by rain, but nowhere else to go! After about 20 minutes the rain let up and AGAIN, we moved out! For 10 minutes it looked like the rain was moving away and we could almost see clear sky ahead! Then the first dog hit me in the head and the cats were not for behind! By this time the temp was down 20 degrees and we were very wet and very cold! We found a little shelter, but the rain was just awful and thunder and lightning were popping all around us! When I looked down river the rain was blowing sideways like in Forrest Gump! Across the river, there was a mud boat ramp on private property which was heavily posted and I actually didn’t think we could make it across the river with the wind and the rain! Then the wind reversed and the rain was blowing back up stream sideways! I told Craig I’d rather be in jail than dead, so we hauled it out of the trees and paddled hard across the river! We made the ramp and drug the boat as far up as we could considering the amount of water we had taken on! We ran up the ramp and found a boat shelter which we huddled under! As we tried to get warm the storm realllllllly let loose! Wind, rain and hail (YES HAiL!) Were pounding the area all around us! As it changed direction and blew in on us, we moved to the backside of the shelter and finally found a semi-dry place to stand! After about 30 minutes, it finally came to an end! We made our way back to the boat and after bailing out A LOT of water, we hit the river again! The rest of the trip went smoothly! We did see a raccoon swim across the river and climb out on a tree! (I think he was probably looking for a boat shelter after that storm woke him up! He didn’t seem to be rabid!!) We even warmed up and the sun came out and it was a beautiful day when we took out the boat! All in all, a wild ride, but Craig did say more than once “Get me off this D*** river!” Phyllis and I asked if he wanted to hit the Oostanaula with us tomorrow, but he declined! I’m not sure why!!!! We finished the evening with Phyllis and some Yummie Thai and a nice soft bed! On to new adventures and knew ponchos in my dry bag!!!!