Even though I had no experience kayaking, I actually have been white water rafting. This was before having Maddie. For some reason having a child changes a woman mentally. I have found I am now a super paranoid person. I swear I used to be brave (my friend could vouch for this). I now think of everything that could go wrong. Well, you can see where this is going. I decided to do the nice, safe lake kayaking over going on a river.

I found in Naperville they have a small lake, Paddleboat Quarry. I read that no reservations are needed. It was fairly inexpensive. $10 per person for the kayak rental. When we arrived there was a ticket booth to pay and storage bins to choose life vests. We walked down the pier, which had a couple of teenagers overseeing, and got into our individual kayaks. They were way more stable than I imagined. As soon as we started paddling I realized my paranoia of easily flipping over was completely unfounded. I now would be up for river kayaking (future date idea).

The lake is small so the rental time of 20 minutes was plenty of time. They also had paddle boat rentals that looked very fun for families. After we wrapped up our kayaking we took a walk around the park the quarry is located in. I had planned for us to get cupcakes at Molly’s Cupcake in downtown Naperville afterwards to add to the date but by this time it was 12pm on a Saturday. Downtown Naperville was a madhouse. After a few frustrating minutes, with no parking in sight, I decided I could live without a cupcake and we went home, lol.