Lake of the Isles Canoeing

We couldn't decide what we wanted to do this weekend, until the last minute. We don't have many free weekends, with my work schedule so when we do have a free weekend we want to take advantage of it. Leading up to this weekend we considered a one night camping trip up on the north shore. Then that turned into maybe just a day trip to the north shore. We really wanted to head up there this summer since we haven't been yet and we usually spend a few weekends up there each summer. Well looking at the weather and the projected heat and rain they were calling for up there, we thought maybe it might not be a good idea. And also I was coming off a long stretch of work, working 8 our of the past nine days, that on Friday (my day off) I started thinking about the need to relax and take it easy. HA that doesn't really happen, but sitting in a car for four hours one way didn't seem too appealing. Although walking in the beautiful north shore woods did.

So our ultimate decision was to just stay home and figure out something to do around here. We thought about going to the beach. But the beaches we like (the non-crowded ones) around our house aren't very sandy, and me and my belly can't get very comfortable on the ground these days. If it were sand, I'd try digging a belly hole and maybe laying that way. So we decided to rent a canoe or kayak at Lake Calhoun instead.

It was a beautiful, cloudy, windy day. It wasn't too windy until we were down by the shore of Lake Calhoun.

While standing in the long rental line, I go the urge to want to do the paddle boats instead. I'm not a big fan of the rowing that canoeing involves, and Kyle isn't really a big fan of the foot paddling, but he agreed we could try out the paddle boat, since neither of us have ever done that.

But when we got up to the counter, the guy said it was too windy for paddle boats and they weren't checking anymore out today. So canoeing it was!

It was VERY windy and chopping on Lake Calhoun. Like everyone else we headed straight for the under-bridge canal leading to Lake of the Isles. You can see the waves on the side of the wall here:

Between the two lakes there is a little lull area where we pulled over to apply sunscreen and get situated.

Then we went over into the Isles area. This lake isn't big and round like Calhoun, it has a couple of little coves and an island in the middle. I couldn't get a great view of the city, but here is an alright shot:

It was such a gorgeous day!

We canoed around a bit. The rental fees were per hour and prorated after the first hour, but once we got out there we figured an hour of floating around was good enough. About mid-way through our trip, Kyle took his shirt off (he didn't want to get burned like he did a few weeks ago camping). Then we paddled over to an opening to take a break and snack on some strawberries. I throw the bag back to him for a treat and he says "Uh, oh... I think I lost my shirt" so we back tracked looking for it, but had no luck. It must have sunk fast! I surely thought the wind maybe just blew it up near the shore we were by, but no such luck. LOL it was rather funny, to me anyway. We had more things planned for the rest of the day, before going home. Had some basement supply shopping to do (bathroom vanity, toilet, faucets, pick out carpet & tile) and we weren't planning to go home. I had a top I wanted to return to Target so I just picked up Kyle another $5 shirt to wear the remainder of our time out and about :-)