And the award for the best parent goes to....

Can you imagine spending two months in a canoe? How about two months with a sixteen year old? Add those two factors together and that doesn’t sound anything like my dream vacation! Steven Faulkner is a much better parent than I will ever be.

Steve felt like he was losing touch with his sixteen year old son – something I can relate to, although he handled it much differently than I. Instead of showing up at whatever location his son and his friends were hanging out at to become “one of the guys”, Steve took his son on a two month canoe trip. Instead of screaming until he was blue in the face, he taught his son about French explorers Joliet and Marquette as they followed the same route taken in 1673. Steve even brought his son home after the expedition! How tempting would it be to encourage him to spread his wings by leaving him at any one of the many stops along the way?

It’s not all my fault that I am not and never will be the parent Steve Faulkner is. My children are not and never will be the son Justin Faulkner was. For this thousand-mile voyage in a sixteen-foot canoe, the Faulkners brought along only a few supplies and a couple of books to read together. My kids would rather swim home after an hour of canoeing than to go any longer without their cell phones, I-pods , computers, and their posse of friends. And to be seen with mom? No way!!

Tomorrow Steve will be at BayShore Books to sign his book about this adventure, Waterwalk: A Passage of Ghosts . How will I react to meeting this icon? Do I bow at his feet or simply hand over my children?