Family Vacation July 2017 Part 2

On our journey from Pilot Knob, MO to Branson, we stopped for a day at Johnson's Shut-Ins State Park.  It was gorgeous!  On the small hike to the swim hole, we had no idea how beautiful it would be when we got there!

Then we continued on to Alton, MO....the smallest town I have ever spent the night in.  The Alton Motel was questionable at best and the one restaurant was disgusting!  These poor people have no idea!  The next morning we woke up to canoe down the 11 Point River.  It started with us getting in a huge group that was together to to up river in the bus.  They were very crude with their language and all adults and one kid.  Little did we know, those people would save our lives on the river.

About 20 minutes into the river trip, we hit a huge tree limb that impaled Brooklyn in her tummy.  I was turned around taking a look and checking on her when our canoe got caught and turned perpendicular in the fast moving current.  Our canoe tipped over losing everything inside of it, our oars, and Brooklyn and Curt.  Curt went floating away down river and we couldn't find Brooklyn.  Colson was holding on to me and I was holding on to a petrified tree for dear life.  Curt was getting out of the river, running through the forest, and jumping back in trying to find where Brooklyn was.  2 men from Dallas stopped to help and then the big group from the bus stopped to help.  They had rope, life jackets and all pulled over to help us get to safety.  In the end, we found out that Brooklyn had held herself up in the void of the canoe for air to stay alive.  They lassoed us to safety and got our canoe turned over.  We each separated into different canoes and these complete strangers took us the rest of the 4 hours down the river.  They fed us, gave us water, and sunblock because we had lost everything in the accident.  These people were put on this river to save us.  We never saw another group of people the rest of the trip.  We found our oars later in the trip and got back in our canoe.  We were very beat up and emotionally drained.  It was the scariest moment in my life thinking my family would not live passed that day.  NEVER again!
On to Branson we drove to meet Kristin, John and John!  It was a rough 3 hour drive because we were emotionally drained and just reeling with thoughts of the day.