Grover Island

Grover Island has become an obsession of mine in a way. Its a small island between Harriet's Bluff and Crooked River State Park. When Keith told me that he and his wife, Shirley, would be in town for the week, I was interested in doing some paddling with them. We arranged to paddle Plum Orchard on Tuesday, but I had to bail on them for that trip. They still did Plum on Tuesday, but I suggested that we do Grover Island on Wednesday and they agreed.
Though I forgot to bring my camera along, I was still able to get some photos after we returned to Crooked River. The trip was about 9 miles and took about 2 hours and 45 minutes to complete, not including our 20 minute lunch.


After our return Keith and I wanted to cool down and practice some Eskimo rolling. We headed to Gilligan's Island Park to use the small lake there. A storm was approaching when we arrived, but we decided to wait it out so that we could get some rolling in. We waited beneath a pavilion on a picnic table for around 15 minutes. After Keith found a nice set of tongs in a tree, we decided to go on an adventure. I wanted to introduce Keith to geocaching so we went in search of a nearby cache. While hunting for this thing in the woods it began to lightning, and Keith is deathly afraid of lightning. I turned around, only to find Keith huddled on the ground in a near fetal position, meanwhile explaining to me that that was the best way to be safe. I was still searching for the cache while crouching around. One particular lightning strike was terrifyingly close. We decided to make the 1/4 miles run through the woods to the car. Keith took off like a racehorse, but I only had flip-flops on. I quickly ditched them and carried them. I had my GPS in the other hand, and every once in a while i glaced at it to see how fast we were going. I clocked Keith at ~14mph. Keep in mind that he is running 14mph while in a full crouch position.

It was truly hilarious, but we made it safely to the car. In 45 minutes we were on the water capsizing and righting the boats like we actually new what we were doing.