Cannon Canoe Adventure on the Snake, by Tucker

Well I have to admit this bloggin' thang aint something I'm used to, considering Ive never even had any interest in having a 'myspace', 'facebook' account... But I'm going to give it a shot here and there, since I do enjoy reading my wifey's posts and the idea of having some type of journal that documents our adventures through life, and this particular adventure was special in a lot of ways. The CannonMen spent at least 6months planning this canoe adventure-getting permits, coordinating transportation and daily meals, scouting campsites, budgeting, and gathering camping supplies. All of this to get away from the rat race that fills our busy lives and get back to basics-life on the range, with those who we love most. As I get older I realize how incredibly difficult it is to coordinate these 'get aways' with everyone you love-almost has to be a lucky combination of schedules, available funds and chance, which is exactly why we missed out on having Cowboy Cole attend this adventure, who began Grad school at USF the exact day we had committed to start our adventure months before.

 Our destination was Wyoming and our mission to survive 3 days, 2 nights on the Snake River, with no river guides or destinations. Row until we find a spot to camp, fall asleep, get up and do it again the next day with some fishing in between. The trip began at Jackson Dam and as we put our canoes into the cold water of the Snake River, we were immediately struck by an incredible backdrop and magnitude of the Grand Tetons and blue skies of Wyoming and knew-we were not in 'Kansas' anymore. I teamed up with brolaw Mike throughout the adventure and after a rough first day of embarrassing ourselves by being the only ones to flip our canoe twice and in the process lose a fishing pole, we avoided all other river hazards for the rest of the trip, mastering canoe maneuvering as we watched the rest of the boats spill and spill again.(although there was one instance I recall being sling-shot out of the back of the canoe by a whiplashed errant log that overhung a left river bend-but I was okay and still... the canoe didnt flip.) Each night once we reached camp, we would camouflage our canoes to avoid detection from the park rangies as we were camping illegally in state parks or private property. Once our tents and camp were set up, Chef-Boy-ar-Hadyn worked his magic. This was one of the biggest surprises of the trip, as each night after a hard day of rowing on the river we were treated to chicken fajitas, chili and rice dinners with homemade deserts(not to mention lunches, snacks, trailmix, gatorade). For those who know what hard camping and hiking is like, you know what a huge deal a good meal is and THESE WERE GOOD MEALS. Another highlight for me was simply being able to actually canoe the Snake River that my dad had been a river guide on during his younger years. For so many years us Cannon kids have heard the many, many stories of his adventures on the Snake and I found my thoughts reflecting back to those stories many times while we floated down the river and retraced his 'oar strokes' in different rapids, whirlpools and bridges.

The river trip concluded with sunburns, sore arms and backs and with farewells to Jake and Gary (our friend and river Savior). The fun was not over though, as we met the Cannon ladies, nephews and spent some time in Jackson. Meeting my wife, mom and sisters was truly a perfect ending to the river trip and I cannot not express what a sight for sore eyes my beautiful Tara was. I've rambled for WAY TOO long and even my wife is looking at me like "WOW and you said you didn't like blogging!" so just a quick summary of my other highlights of Jackson: the SnowKing Condo, Rodeo, the late night meal at the Snake River Brewery Company and Million Dollar Cowboy Saloon, Alpine Slide, Yellowstone's Old Faithful and when someone mistook me for Pro Snowboarder at dinner with the fam!

9 days & 48 hours in the car

We got back last week from the one summer vacation we planned. The Cannons (Snows included), 13 of us in total, locked and loaded in four cars headed for the great wide open. Well, it was desert until we reached St. George.

There were many car changes, driver changes, DVDs, CDs, people napping, pit stops, and laughter on our way to SLC. The boys rested their heads for a night with us at Nels and Shirin's house before they hit the road for their boys canoe trip down the Snake River. The canoe trip will be a separate post by Tucker.

When the boys left for Wyoming the girls (luckily for us sometimes with the newphews) got to play. We partied down at Grandma Slagle's birthday party, shopped, ate Wendy's Frosties, shopped some more, got mani/pedis, had an all girls dinner at Ruth's in Immigration Canyon (Bo was the ladies man), napped, relaxed, and then packed it up to head to Jackson Hole to meet the boys.

Another long car ride through some of the most beautiful land I've ever seen and we were there. Us girls missed our men so much we drove up and down the banks of the Snake River to suprise them. Well, we found their truck and a Bald Eagle, no boys on canoes. Our condo at Snow King was so beautiful, with views of the Tetons.
After the boys returned from their trip of a lifetime, tired and sunburned, the Cannons hit the ground running for the next four days.

We went to the rodeo.





The girls went white water rafting down part of the Snake.

The boys arn't the only ones who ride the white water.
Click links for the photos:
Big Kahuna

We rode down the Alpine Slide.

Had a knee slap'n time at Bar-J Chuckwagon.

We took a trip to Yellowstone National Park.

Never having been there before we quickly realized that the park was a lot larger then expected. So, we ventured to no more than a fourth of the place.

We ended our last day in Jackson Hole with a good ol' cowboy shoot out in the town square.

If you look closely you can see Cannon running away from the cowboy gun fire like the rest of the kids and then you'll see Roman staring admiringly at the cowboy with a top hat.

When we got home from our trip I found Tucker on the computer. When I asked him what he was doing he said he was trying to find a way to move to Jackson Hole.

Thanks mom and dad Cannon. We had a blast and would never have been able to have as much fun with out the whole family there.

PS- Cole, we missed you more than you know!

US Open of Surfing

Thank heavens this huge tournament doesn't occur on our pier. Thousands, I mean thousands, of people gather for this yearly event. We were going to beach cruise to it. Yep, no biggie, it had to only be 5 miles at the most, we are in shape, young people. Well, luckily we clocked it in the car when we took a recent drive to Huntington. 7.5 miles? That's a 15 mile round trip on our cruisers. No thanks! So, we racked the cruisers on the FJ and parked a couple miles from the Huntington Beach pier ( that's the closest parking spot we could find at 9:00am, yes I said thousands). We watched Slatron and the final heat of Men's surfing, ate at Duke's, bought some useful tourist gear (I love my $5 Hurley canteen), and then watched Caballero shred in the skate comp. By the end of the day I was so grateful for our couple mile bike ride to the car. One day of the Open is definitely all we can handle a year, I can't wait for next.

Happy Shark Week!

Discovery