Mississippi Mondays: Canoeing the Black Creek

I have decided to add a feature to our blog.  Mississippi Mondays.  Since arriving here we have had a lot of Mississippi adventures.  We have biked to the beach, learned about d'Iberville at a local park, visited the farmer's market and a myriad of other things.  Most recently we went canoeing.  I found it funny that it finally cooled off enough to seem fun to go on a canoe trip the same week Utah got their first snowstorm of the year.  The kids had Thursday and Friday off so we decided to go on a little trip to canoe the Black Creek River.  I felt like Kiersten and Meagan were finally old enough to go on a trip so we took the whole family.  I put my camera in a waterproof bag for camera's so, unfortunately, some of my pictures are blurry.

We started about 5 miles north of Brooklyn, MS and ended at the Brooklyn Bridge.  Not  Here is the whole crew (except the photographer) midway through out trip.

Kiersten was the youngest on our crew and spent most of her time sitting on my feet.  Occasionally she would look over the side of the canoe, and she did try standing but didn't really like the sway of the canoe.  I think she had the most fun playing in a mud puddle on one of the sandbars.  Rocks and sticks have to be the best toys to ever exist.

Meagan was the exact opposite.  She leaned over the side and touched the water, tried every spot available to her in the canoe, jabbered on about everything she saw and even took her turn paddling.  I thought she would tire of it, but she did not.  We brought a boogie board for her to sit on in the bottom of the canoe, but she wanted to ride on it instead.  Though you can't see it (it is just under the water) she is kneeling on the boogie board and riding along holding onto the side of the canoe in this picture.  This was her favorite way to ride.  She fell off once and that didn't phase her a bit.  She climbed right back on and kept going.

Even at this age these two little girls are the best of friends.  Here they are sharing valuable rocks with each other.

Kate loved this trip.  She also took a turn on the boogie board and loved it.  She is enjoying her apple here.  By the end of the trip she had become a very proficient paddler.  I love this age.  She is half way between a child and a teen.  She took great care picking out her outfit and doing her hair, and then she filled her shoe up with rocks and clams (all of which we left at the sandbar.)  

She was also the first to see a turtle.  She saw this little guy in the water and gently admired him for several minutes.  His shell was 4-5 inches long.   We saw several other turtles on the trip, the largest had a shell that was about 12 inches long.

Here are Chris and Kate gathering their treasures on the sandbar.  Chris also really enjoyed this trip.  He and Kate are great friends and take good care of each other.  I don't have pictures of Sariah and Trevor...partially because they were in my canoe, and well I don't know.  They were in control of one canoe on  their own for a while.  It was pretty entertaining until they got the hang of it.  I think they are ready for our next canoe trip.  We are hoping to camp along the river next time.  This particular trip was a practice trip to see how the babies would do and to see if we had enough capable paddlers.  

An interesting bit of trivia.   This river is in the DeSoto National Forest and was canoed by DeSoto himself.

After our canoe trip we took a little drive around in the DeSoto National Forest before we headed home. It was interesting to me that there were little towns and farms in the forest.   In one of the little towns (I think it was Janice) we stopped at this little gas station.  It's been a while since I've seen a pump like this. And yes it does work.

We also saw a bunch of cotton field.  We let the kids get out and touch the cotton but we didn't pick any.  What and interesting plant!!!