No fun birthday, Huddle House, and Wild Turkeys!

Note to my mom: The water level on the dan is seriously like 10-12 inches-we had life jackets in the boat.

Saturday was Kelly's birthday and she woke up sick with the thing that has been going around Greensboro. So, instead of celebrating with cake, hamburgers, hot dogs, and friends it was chicken noodle soup, opening presents while half awake, and lots of rest. She is 100% better today! The good thing for Kelly is that she is born in the "blessed" month as Ann Smith would say and so Kelly gets to not only celebrate May 19th-but the whole month of May. Madison gives her presents everyday--actually about every 2-3 hours!

Ok so you don't think I'm the worst husband in the world--Kelly let me do it!! Do what? Well my friends Jeff, Kevin, Matt, and I traveled up to Madison, NC today and paddled down the Dan River. Its about a three hour round trip from house to water back to house. If you have a canoe or kayak, you should definitely think about doing this section of the Dan river. We left Greensboro around 11:30 and ate at the new Huddle House restaurant on HWY 220 where we all got "Big Boy Platter"s--note: don't get the "Big Boy Platter" before paddling down a river. 3 eggs, 5 pieces of bacon, a ton of hash browns, grits, and a biscuit--add the Mountain Dew laxative and your in for a wild ride! Ok where was I. Oh so we got onto the river and paddled from the Lindsey Bridge access to the HWY 704 bridge. This stretch is about 2.5 miles and there are some pretty cool historical sites along the way. I couldn't help but think about the movie "Deliverance" da da ding ding ding ding ding ding ding-you know the tune. Luckily for us we didn't see any crazy people dangling banjos from bridges. Ok so you're probably wondering why the title says, Wild Turkeys. Well, when we got to the HWY 704 bridge, Matt realized that he didn't have his truck keys--they were in my truck 2.5 miles upstream or 5 miles on the highway. Kevin and I decided to hitchhike our way back to my truck. This is where the wild turkey comes into play. We started walking down the road and saw some wild turkeys so we decided to jump on the back of them and ride them to my truck. No we didn't. After several attempts to get a ride with someone that has a truck--we just wanted to ride in the back so if the people were weird we could jump out--a nice couple (i think) stopped and picked us up. They had a cover on their truck bed so we had to get inside. You have to know how to talk to people when you hitchhike so they will feel comfortable with you that you're not going to do anything stupid like steal their car or something. So when the guy asked me if I had seen any wild turkeys on our trip downstream, I put on my thick Greenville downeast accent and started talking to them about wild turkeys! I don't know if Kevin would agree, but I think that conversation kept us alive, or at least in the truck!