The Second Anniversary

This year for our seccond wedding anniversary we decided to do something fun and exciting!! So we rented a canoe and proceeded on a 10 mile journey down the Russian River. The trip was tri-purposed...1) it was our anniversary; 2) it was BLAZING hot in the valley where we live and the river was over a mountain and near the coast... nearly 15 degrees cooler! and 3) Joey LOVES canoeing. When he was a boy scout, he taught canoeing, sailing and swimming at summer camp. He wants to buy us a canoe of our own, but since I've never used one before, he wanted me to test it out.

So off we went. We drove over the mountain on a Saturday

morning. We wore our bathers, our tank tops, shorts, and river shoes. When we got over the range it was COLD and cloudy! Nothing a cup of coffee from Bad Ass Coffee couln't take care of, though. And the weather did warm up. Eventually. We stood in line at Burke's canoe rental for about an hour and finally landed ourselves a sweet silver canoe.

We (read as "Joey") rowed leisurly for the first 7 miles or so...

...with a power-row to get past the "priates" (read as "3 canoes tied together, with rowdy drunk boys") and avoid our boat being tipped by them. It was nice and relaxing and really pretty.

Then the wind picked up and I had to help row

for the last 3 miles. I have to give Joey a lot of credit because I only rowed a little bit and I was TIRED and sore!!! He's a trooper and a fantastic rower!

Since Joey was in charge of this trip he booked us some reservations at a lovely inn called the Jenner Inn in the small (read as "no cell phone coverage") town of, you guessed it, Jenner. It's the spot where the Russian River meets the Pacifiic Ocean. [at this point you may say to yourself "did Karen and Joey row their canoe all the way down the river and into the ocean?" and I would say to you "NO WAY could Karen row that far!! Novice does not equal ocean canoeing!" We drove, sillies!] It was cool and overcast when we arrived, in stark contrast to the ever-sunny, ever-hot Napa Valley. Wonderful.

There was also a hot tub that ROCKED! It overlooked the river and that was great! (view from the hot tub.....)

After a quick dip in the hot tub, Joey took me to the best dinner that we've had in California so far! It rivaled some of the places that we found in NYC (and that's hard to do!). It's called the River's End Restaurant. The restaurant faces the west and is mostly windows, so there are some fantastic views of the sunsets. Here's a photo that I lifted from the website.

Then on Sunday, we drove back home to the heat and the valley... completely refreshed and relaxed!