an eventful bike ride

On May 1st we went on a bike ride with our friends Jen & Ben to the Metro Park.  It had POURED rain the day before, but it turned out to be a perfect day. 

So we were biking along, and suddenly we came to a big flooded area. Hey, that's cool - so we buzzed through it without a worry (and gave the kids a huge spray - woops!). Then we came to a deeper flooded area. Hmmm... this time we went through slowly and avoided getting our shoes wet. But then, what do you know! We came to a HUGE LAKE in the trail. The river along the path was so flooded that it actually split and was flowing across the bike trail into the lake on the other side. There was a CURRENT going across the bike path. No joke. Yeah, so there was no where to go but straight ahead, so Jen and I braved the rapids, got our shoes completely SOAKED, and I slowed down so much when it got super deep that I nearly tipped right over into the water! At the deepest point we saw a big splash to our left but we were too concerned about making it out alive that we didn't take too much notice. Well, Jed saw it and when he came biking past he looked around in the water and Woah! There was a humungous fish wandering around in there!  It must have gotten lost and was hanging out in the water covering the bike road. I couldn't believe it when Jed told me, so I rolled up my pants and went wading to try to get a look at it. Sure enough, I found it swimming around. It was pretty big! I couldn't get quite close enough to try to grab it, although I wanted to! Anyway, it was such an adventure swimming our bikes through this flood water. I seriously wanted to just run and jump into all the water and wade and splash around. It looked so inviting! But I held back... I don't think any one would have joined me, and what's the fun in that? If it had been a hot day, I bet I could have talked them into it! :)

Check out that water! Isn't it amazing?!  (I'm not standing in the deep part yet in the picture. And you can't see the lake in the picture. All that water is just flood water.)

And here are our cuties. They thought they had it made, being towed around and getting a free ride. But they paid the price when the water reached all the way to their seat and they were sitting in puddles for the rest of the time! They were good sports. :)

When we unloaded, we had to strip them down to undies and diaper.  I had to peel Eliza's wet tights off her legs.  And they had to live with partially wet shirts. The kids got cold, so Ben would get warm in a big sweatshirt for a while and then run and play for a while. I should have brought spare clothes. But then, I didn't think we'd be crossing a river on our bike ride...

What Daddy's do best...

We had a great time, and hopefully we get to do it again on a nice hot day! Water, here we come!