January 17 - Canoe and Camping Trip... arctic style!

For some reason, I can't access my schedule from months ago anymore.  I guess that's good because it'll help me catch up on my posts faster than I was going before... because I was catching up on every single trip lol.

The weekend of January 17, Justin and I went kayaking and camping with a bunch of his fraternity brothers.  I love that this group of friends is always doing new/fun stuff.  On Friday, I drove with Justin to Tampa so he could go to a work conference.  I sat in the lobby the whole time working on tax stuff while Justin was in meetings.  He'd sneak out to bring me food and things.  It was fun.

The tax work is feeling a bit overwhelming.  There is so much to research.  Then I need to apply for a Tax Preparer ID, have to research and buy a tax software, need access to a tax software, how much am I going to charge, need to design a business card, etc...  I wasn't expecting it to be so overwhelming.

Needless to say, I had plenty to do.

The next morning, we drove down to Arcadia to meet the group for camping.  The paddle down was a blast, but half of the group had no idea how to canoe.  Justin, meanwhile, was determined to keep in front of the group while his friend Joe (and his wife Kayla) kept trying to pass us.  It was a fun ordeal until multiple canoes tipped over while racing.

We picked a spot along the river and set up camp.  Good thing we did it then, because we had enough time to find fire wood and get the fire going.  It soon got insanely cold.  I have to say, on our next camping trip, Justin is not in charge of the food.  We had bare minimalist stuff, while everyone else was cooking gourmet stuff like ribs and chili, we had hot dogs.

That night, I thought we were going to die because it got so cold.  I couldn't even drink beer because it chilled me to the core.  Everyone went to bed pretty early and Justin and I huddled together, trying to keep warm.  I wasn't sure we were going to make it.

We woke up to find out the temperature had dropped to the low 30's during the night.  At one point there were pieces of "frozen water particles" falling from the sky.  Ice covered everything.

Justin, the great outdoors man that he is, was the first person up.  He got the fire going, started some coffee for me and made breakfast.  He takes such good care of me.

Justin has all of the good pics on his computer, but here are a few.

Everyone's stuff

I've no idea how some of these canoe's floated

Ice on everything the next morning

Ice inside our tent even!!

This was at 8am... after it'd warmed up a little.

arctic style!