Better than Waxing!

Yesterday I learned a valuable lesson:
Just because the calendar says it's spring, doesn't mean you can do spring things.

Let's say for example.... crossing a river. Barefoot. In shorts.

In retrospect, the fact that I could SEE ice chunks floating down the river, probably should have tipped me off that the water was going to be cold.

I just get so excited about ideas and goals. I was determined this spring, to walk over to Rabbit Island - which is an island in the middle of the Thompson River in Kamloops. There is no bridge there, and really there is nothing on it except grass, trees and some wildlife. It's a totally unused and inaccessible island in the middle of the city and in the spring, before the river rises from runoff, the north side of the river recedes probably close to 100m from where it is at high water. The river is so narrow, that at one point it is nearly possible to jump across a little creek (or so I thought) to dry land and then walk to the island.

The 'little' creek, was still a 7m wide chunk of river with a surprisingly swift current. It was however shallow (just above my knees), and on a glorious Sunday afternoon Bethany, Vanessa, our friend Scarlett and I climbed down the embankment, rolled up our pants and waded across what was left of the river.

At first it was like, "oh this water is cold" and then by the time we were stuck in the middle of the current in the river and still had 4 more meters to go, we were screaming "What were we thinking?!?!? This water is stinking cold! My feet. I can't feel them. No I can feel them. They BURN. Should my legs be burning?!?!?!?"

Anyways, we made it over. Explored the island and walked across it to the other side, were slightly disappointed that it really is just a boring chunk of land, and took our time heading back to the north side to walk back through the bitterly cold, ice-chunk carrying, river.

The good news is that I'm pretty sure the hair folicles in my leg are frozen, so I won't have to shave all summer.



The river generally reaches the line of trees you can see in the distance.



See. It's not even a little bit interesting.