"Wouldn't it be funny if..."

Okay, so this post is from the older and wiser half (my own description of course) of the younger Griggs. That's right. I, Jon, have finally been coerced into adding my two cents worth to the information superhighway. As Noelle mentioned earlier, she and I went kayaking on the Trinity river near our apartment in Fort Worth. We had our own adventures as my lovely and capable wife so eloquently described in her previous post, though I think the "banks of doom and destruction" may be slightly exaggerated. But, it makes for entertaining reading, so we will allow her certain "small" embellishments. What she didn't tell everyone is that her dad and I had scouted out the river several days previous to make sure that it was a good trip. Now, I'm sure everyone who knows the Suttons well has heard at least one story of one of the "We almost died!" canoe trips that Jim used to take the family on when the kids were younger. Now, I've been hearing these stories for the whole time I've known the family, and I must admit they were a bit hard to believe. Ever since I heard the first story I have wanted to go on my own trip with my father-in-law. I have to confess now that my motives were twofold: I wanted to have fun and enjoy a trip on the water with my father-in-law, and I also wanted to show the Sutton offspring that a trip with her father could go exactly as planned without a freak storm, a 10 mile hike back to a major highway, or a swarm of hungry vampire bats (okay I made that one up). The trip started just fine. We dropped off one car at one end of the river and headed upstream in the truck to the put-in to start our adventure. I realized very quickly that this might not be a normal trip for me. On the way to the put-in we were driving on a busy city street, just talking back and forth and laughing, when I glanced up and saw three small birds land on the street in front of us. Normally, you know, this is not a big deal. Birds land on the road, truck comes, birds fly away. That's the way it works, doesn't it? Well, not today, folks! Right in the middle of a sentence I heard a thump, thump, thump and looked back to see feathers flying EVERYWHERE. Okay, it's strange enough to hit one bird with a car, but three. I mean really, who does that? Jim and I joked back and forth that no river trip is complete without a story, and now we had our story. Anyway, we got to the put-in without further vehicular homicide and got our kayaks in just fine and headed down the river. The trip was great. The river had some small sections of fast water and a lot of flat slow moving water. There were huge trees hanging over the water. I know those of you who have visited Texas before might have a hard time believing that there are huge trees anywhere in Texas, but I've seen them. We didn't have any problems going down the river. My father-in-law actually has some impressive skills on the water. I kept thinking to myself, "This guy knows exactly what he's doing on the water. How do his trips always go bad?" Anyway, we got to the bottom of the river, pulled the kayaks out of the water, and headed up the bank to the waiting car we were going to use to go get the truck at the put-in. Jim turned around at that point and said something to the effect of, "Wouldn't it be funny if you forgot the keys!" Well, at that point I realized that I had indeed left the keys to our shuttle car in the center console of the truck. When I told him, he thought I was joking at first, but quickly realized that I was serious. I told him at least the crazy trip wasn't his fault this time, but he informed me that Noelle would say it was his fault anyway just for going. Long story short, I had to run about 2.5 miles through the woods, up the side of the interstate, and down the sidewalk back to the apartment to get Noelle to give me a ride. Of course it happened to be the one day that she had fed the children at 11:00 and already had Maggie down for her nap. Noelle did indeed jokingly blame her dad, but I think it was my own pride that the Lord was trying to remove. Anyway, it was a great trip, and I can't wait to take another with my father-in-law. Maybe it can actually be a normal one, but hey, what's the fun in that?