Weekending - The Float Trip

Well, I survived the float trip!  Not only did I survive it -- I loved it!  What a fabulous way to spend the weekend with great friends, floating down a river on a beautiful day.  Yep, this may become an annual thing.  Even though I was terrified a bit fearful of the float (expressed HERE), all my anxiety subsided after a little while on the river and it turned into pure joy.  Maybe the vodka gummie bears helped, but mostly I think it was just my friends putting me at ease and the beauty of my surroundings.  There were nine of us in this adventure.  Besides myself, we had Linda, Jodie, Janet, Dorothy, Mary, TW, Nick, and Debora.  It was so refreshing to get away with this great group of friends.  Wow - did we have fun!

Every good weekend trip needs a goody bag.  It was so much fun putting these together to welcome everyone to the weekend.  I'll be blogging more about these babies on Wednesday.

Let's start the recap with Friday.  I buzzed out of work after half day and met up with my friends TW and Nick to head to the cabin.  TW and Nick swung through St. Louis on their way through from Wisconsin to pick me up so we could travel to the cabin together.  I was super grateful because driving the three hour trip to our cabin in the woods would not have been as fun had I driven by myself.  As a matter of fact, our cabin was so deep in the woods I might have actually still been driving around trying to find it.  TW, on the other hand, drove us right there with very little backtracking.

The cabin we rented was one available from Riverfront Rental Cabins.  Honestly, it was even better in person than it was in the pictures on the website.  How often does that happen?!?  Riverfront provided our shuttle and rafts for the float also.  Nice job TW for finding this place!!  Our cabin (Cave Creek) was literally over the river and through the woods.  Perfect location for the nine of us to hang out for the weekend.  There will be more on the cabin on Thursday in my Thinking Out Loud post.  Wait until you see the pictures on the inside!

With five of us arriving at our cabin by late afternoon, TW whipped up his famous guacamole dip for us to snack on until dinner time.  This concoction is so good it deserves a post all by itself.  I'll be sharing the recipe on Tuesday.  As a matter of fact, we had so much good food this weekend I have several recipes I'll be sharing over the next couple weeks.

When the last carload got in the area around 7:30 pm, we met for dinner in town.  We had pre-decided to eat dinner at a restaurant and not try to cook on our first night.  We choose Ollie's BBQ and Steakhouse.  This establishment was a winner!  We walked in the door of this joint and enjoyed our first evening laughing and drinking over some great food.  If you're in the Bennett Springs area, it's definitely worth checking out.  Nothing fancy, just some good food with friendly service.  And they didn't mind our loud laughter and boisterous behavior.

Finally got the hang of the selfie stick

After dinner, we headed back to our cabin in the woods to play cards and enjoy a special lemon cake Mary brought to celebrate TW and Janet's birthdays.

Yes, it was as good as it looked!

Saturday morning we woke to enjoy Dorothy's scones.  The recipe for her Cherry Vanilla scones can be found HERE.  Yum!  It would be wonderful to wake up to these everyday!

Our shuttle arrived and we piled in to start our adventure on the water.  Just about the time we were getting to the company store to buy ice, the skies opened and it rained hard for several minutes.  Then, just as fast as the rain came in, it was over.  Thank goodness!  Off to the river we went!



Our 7 mile float was on the Niangua River, which is a tributary of the Osage River in the Ozarks.  The water runs clear and cold.  We were so lucky to have had a day of perfect temperatures and beautiful clear water to float.  I'll let you see our trip through a few pictures.

Saturday night we were all a little tired.  After eating dinner, we played some cards and called it a night fairly early.

Sunday we all headed back home.  TW, Nick and I stopped by the waterfall we had seen on our way back to the cabin after the float to snap a few pictures.  The Bennett Springs state park is truly gorgeous.  I would love to go back in the fall when the leaves are turning.

We journeyed the three hours back to my house reminiscing of all the fun that was had during the last 36 hours.  Great weekend trip!  Can't wait to do this again.

When I got home, Eric and I had just enough time to run over to the Midwest Salute to the Arts and see the show.  We ran into some old friends -- so great catching up AND seeing some great art.

To cap off an already great weekend, I had some happy mail waiting for me when I got home.  Tracy had dropped this Alex and Ani bracelet in the mail to me.  Love, love, love it!!  Great friends are hard to find and I'm so very blessed to have some in my life.  Thank you Tracy!

As I read back over this post, I realize that my words just aren't expressing what a great weekend it was.  So much fun with great friends!  I hope you had a great weekend too and also hope you have wonderful friends in your life to share things with.  If you don't - FIND SOME!  Friends just make life so much richer!

Check out what others were up to this weekend.

Champagne and Suburbs

B Loved Boston

I Should Be Mopping the Floor

Life of Meg

More Pieces of Me
Bella and the City
Oak and Oats
A Cute Angle
The Quinntessential Mommy
How To Get Organized At Home