Moments: An Adventure Gone Awry

I love adventure. I love traveling, meeting new people, conquering a challenge, and the like. However, I also know that sometimes and particularly in my experience it seems, adventures can be a bust. At the very least, they don't turn out the way you expect they will. When this happens, all you can do is enjoy the ride for what it's worth and then turn it in to a great story (like the time I threw up more than 20 times at the basin of the Amazon rain forest in Peru, but that's a story for another day). So, here is the tale of the Cahaba Lily Festival 2012....

In honor of Memorial Day weekend and the beginning of summer, my friend Jennifer and I wanted to do something fun on Saturday, May 26th. We both love the outdoors and thought it'd be fun to do something related to the water. Canoeing seemed like a great idea. When we heard about the Cahaba Lily Festival, we thought this would be the perfect half-day adventure where we could enjoy a canoe trip and experience life outside of Birmingham.

We drove to West Blocton, a poor, tiny town between Birmingham and Tuscaloosa. When we arrived on a mostly deserted Main Street, we were not even sure we were in the right place. We found the building that was the festival headquarters and entered a room that looked like it could serve as a town hall, fellowship hall, funeral parlor, or whatever else you might need. A few people were talking, one or two individuals were selling photographs of the famous lilies, and others were milling around after finishing a potluck lunch. There was also no river in sight. Not exactly what we were expecting or driven almost an hour for!

However, we were not to be easily deterred so we asked a few people and then found out that there was a shuttle that took people to the Cahaba River and from there, we could rent a canoe. We waited patiently with a young couple who also stuck out like us as not being locals, and then headed down to the river in a 15-passenger van. [A fun side note is that the shuttle driver turned out to be from Homewood and the husband of one of my co-workers.]

Once at the river, we walked less than a mile down the canoe rental sight, paid the fee, signed our waivers, and waited...and waited...and waited. Apparently, they must have done a great job advertising the festival this year and not quite thought through all the details. They thought they had plenty of canoes, but they failed to give the participants a time limit. Occasionally, a canoe would return, but there were still lots of people in front of us waiting their turn. Finally, after almost an hour and a half, we realized we were not going to get to canoe today. The last shuttle back to Main Street and our car was leaving in less than 30 minutes, and we still hadn't even received a canoe. The ladies in charge graciously refunded our money and also apologized profusely.

We took the shuttle back and then resignedly headed back to Birmingham, not too sad to leave West Blocton behind. Of course, the day wasn't a total disappointment--Jennifer and I got to spend great quality time together, we caught a few sun rays while we waited on the bank of the river, and we have now both seen the "famous" Cahaba Lily in its natural environment. We also decided the moral of the story is bring your own canoe or go to Oak Mountain State Park instead!