Monday, May 30, 2011

*flop* And the month comes to a close

Float trip weekend. Weekend of sun and fun and pain and great thanks.

Got up at 0430 on Saturday morning to work out. Felt great. Packed the car and headed for the river. Got there early, then played the sit and wait game. I honestly have no idea why we piddle around so long. But eventually we hit the river. Not the best weather, it was cloudy and a little chilly. And the dog spent a lot of time being a pain in the butt trying to bail from the canoe all day. He loved being out there, but he didn't like being confined to the boat. So he would get antsy every time we passed land too closely.
Sunday was much better. The sun was out and it was beautifully warm. Which means we spent a lot of time goofing around on gravel bars and making pit stops. It's all good and fun until the end of the day is closing in and we're still miles from our take out point. But that wasn't the excitement of the day. No, that happened about 3/4 of the way down.
Scott and Amanda got swept up very quickly and unexpectedly in the current (the river is up and they weren't even letting people on the river for a while because of how quick it was moving). They ended up far to the left whereas everyone else had pulled right. Now everyone was far ahead and Scott and Amanda were losing control of their boat. They got sucked into a massive swift current under a tree root. Their boat went under in the blink of an eye. By the time we (me and my dad) looked back, we were too far ahead of them to get back (the current was too swift to back paddle, but if it was necessary, we were prepared to pull sideways to the bank and run back). So it was just a painfully long wait to see them pop up out of the water. My heart stopped for a long time while the water kept rushing, and their belongings kept popping up out of the tree root and they were nowhere to be found. I'm not sure how long it finally took, but they came up out of the water. Amanda was snagged on the tree and still struggling, but Scott was already making his way to her. Then my focus went to the dog, who we still hadn't seen even after they surfaced. I looked across the river though and he was already making his way to the bank, struggling with the current but holding his own just fine.
The down side? We had forgotten to turn back in a while and by the time we did, we were sideways in a swift rush and another tree root was about to take down another canoe. When we came up on it, we leaned and I felt like just maybe we were going to bounce. But it just didn't happen and in another blink, we were down too. We turned over, pulled our heads out of the water, I grabbed the dog's collar to make sure he was okay (I didn't know if any of us had gotten hurt, but I knew we had to make it to land).
And by the grace of God, there were other boaters on the water. Larger boats with motors instead of just paddles. They saw the struggle and two boats headed upstream for our friends while we pulled ourselves to shore. Both dogs stood and shook off and ran around in a daze while I rushed to catch everything I possibly could (everything was tied down except for my chair - on the off chance we did flip, I knew that one would be a hazard - and things like my sandals, the sunscreen I had been putting on, paddles, and our PFDs of course). We managed to get everything back except for my chair, drink bottle (in the arm of my chair when we went over) and the walkie talkie that was on the front of my rash guard and disappeared sometime during the crash). I had run to catch everything that got loose while my dad started untying things to dump the water. Meanwhile, one of the motor boats had pulled up with Scott and Amanda, both very shaken (and Scott was in the military not that long ago, but this was different, he wasn't going in thinking death could be a possibility or that he might lose his girl....because that's what the situation had come down to for a long few moments there). We put both of the dogs in my canoe and Scott rode with me back down the river while my dad and Amanda rode in the motor boat - we were worried Scott's dog would try to bail and chase him if he wasn't with him.
There was a lot of fear in Scott's voice as we headed down to meet everyone else (our other two canoes had heard the commotion, saw us go over, and eventually managed to pull over) but he calmed down once we were on land and he was with Amanda again (she was shaking and crying). We thanked the guys who pulled us all out and rescued our stuff and hung out on the gravel bar while we sorted through it all. Scott and Amanda lost about $300 worth of gear (fishing gear and such) but knew it could have gone worse. And Scott's birthday is next month, so now we all know what to get him :) ).
Rest of the day was pretty uneventful. Got back, unpacked a little, showered, cooked, took it easy. And today we went down to play in the river near our camp site for a while before we all had to leave. It was a great weekend. Even if I am burnt crispy (never fails....no matter how much sunscreen I put on throughout the day).

Good times, good friends and family, great weekend. And our beautiful flag flew proudly from the RV at our main camp site. What a great memorial day weekend.

And now we're home and have things mostly unpacked and we're taking it easy for the rest of the night.

Hope everyone had a great memorial weekend! I'll be around tomorrow for day one of the month of posts!

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