Hello world,
Well, today was our very last yogurt session. I’d say we had a strong finish, as all 6 of us attended, and we ate our last 18 yogurts while doing one of our most adventurous activities yet – canoeing. That’s right, we ate yogurt in canoes on Griffy Lake. How? Well…that’s a good question.
We arrived and rented two canoes, and split into two groups of three: Adam, Dennis and I (Kaela) in one, and Jessica, Hannah and Siarra in the other. The spoons, crackers, and lunch boxes full of yogurt were loaded into the canoes and we pushed off from the bank and headed to the middle of the lake. Once we were convinced that we had found the perfect spot, we pulled our canoes side by side (with much effort, I might add) and a few of us held the sides of the boats together. And there you have it – we were a floating yogurt-tasting headquarters in the middle of Griffy Lake.
We had a plethora of yogurt brands and flavors to finish up today, and we started with the Yoplait Splitz. These were very sweet, and had flavors like Strawberry Banana Split, and Rainbow Sherbet. The Strawberry Sundae was the strangest of the three, and a few of us thought it tasted oddly of pasta. We finished up the Yo Plus yogurts, which we all agreed had better aftertastes than their “during” tastes. The remaining Yo Kids flavors were bland, and brought in pretty average ratings, while the last two Yoplait Lights (Raspberry Cheesecake and Banana Cream Pie) were slightly deterring. Even Hannah (who seems to be drawn to banana flavored yogurts) rated the Banana Cream Pie at a 10.
The Activia Dessert yogurts were next, and for the most part, tasted like what they were supposed to, and received average ratings near the 10-11 range. We had one Active Lifestyle Yogurt to eat (Strawberry), and it was pleasant, getting an average of almost 12. We also drank our last smoothie today, and thankfully it was a good one. The Kroger Strawberry smoothie had a nice consistency and didn’t taste like soured milk, like some of the other brands we’ve tried.
We rounded out our last session with a few Greek yogurts, which started out badly, but ended up being tolerable. Our first brand was Yoplait Greek, Strawberry. This was possibly the thickest, chalkiest yogurt we’ve eaten (it rivaled the Dan-o-nino yogurts in this respect). The next was Dannon Greek Strawberry, which was an improvement on the Yoplait, but kind of bland. The last (Chobani Greek Strawberry) was the most palatable of the Greek Yogurts, and the only one to bring in a reasonable rating (11).
About halfway through our yogurt eating, we noticed that our canoes had drifted dangerously close to the bank. We quickly paused our passing of the yogurts, stuck our spoons in our mouths and grabbed paddles. Hannah and I held the two boats together and the others frantically tried to direct us back to the center of the lake. This resulted in a lot of water sloshing over the walls of the canoes, drenching the paper with the ratings, and causing a lot of laughter at the thought of how ridiculous we must have looked.
Once finished with the yogurts, we separated the canoes and paddled to the end of the lake, enjoying the weather and scenery. As we turned around in the cove near the dam, it was evident that a switch had been flipped in every one of our minds. What happens when you put 6 competitive teenagers in two canoes at the far end of a lake? They will race back to the dock – every time. And so we did. Jessica, Hannah, and Siarra took the lead early in the race, but Dennis, Adam and I were not far behind. As we reached the final stretch before passing under the bridge to the dock, the aforementioned leader canoe ran into a bit of trouble, as they found themselves stuck on a mud island. My canoeing team had seen this island far earlier in the race, and planned a course that would avoid it, leading us straight to the dock while our friends poked and prodded at the mud beneath their canoe in the middle of the lake. Victory was ours!
We ended the afternoon with a trip to 5 Guys for lunch, where Jessica brought us a celebratory cake for successfully finishing our summer project, just in time for me to start school tomorrow. It should be noted that Jessica attended EVERY yogurt session of the project, and is the only one of us who can truly say they ate every flavor we catalogued. A special congratulation is in order for her.
I’m a little sad to say that we won’t be meeting to rate more yogurts. But we will be having a “Victory Lap” session, where we will revisit our highest rated yogurts of the project. Dennis will also be writing a post that summarizes some of our final statistics, so keep an eye out for that!
Well, we’ve done it. 334 yogurts- eaten and rated. Congratulations EAFYIDPET’ers! This was definitely a summer well spent.
