Monday, August 3, 2009

Float Trip

On Saturday, Edward and I took Ross and Elizabeth on a float trip on the Current River with a group of 33 of our friends from church. We had our canoes reserved for about a month. I wasn't so optimistic when we arrived at the river, and it was seventy-three degrees and raining. Couple that with sixty degree river water, and I knew it would be a cold day. Surprisingly, it didn't turn out too bad. We rowed for about an hour in the rain and fog, but it quickly lifted. It stayed pretty cloudy most of the day and got to a high of seventy-eight degrees. Edward and and I were relieved the sun wasn't just blazing down on us. That part of the trip was pretty enjoyable.

I have really mixed feelings about our trip. While we had a great time with our family and friends, I was shocked and repulsed by the behavior of nearly everyone else on the river. All of the party people who were two sheets to the wind were either oblivious that we had fourteen children (ages 7 - 14) in our group, or they just didn't care. Only once during the day did someone in one of the rowdy groups yell out to another to watch the language. My skin crawled at each vulgar and vile thing I heard. If I heard it, my two kids heard it as well, and that makes me really mad. At the beginning of the trip, the kids would say, "Mom! That person just said a cuss word!" By the end of the trip, they just plugged their ears as they saw groups with alcohol. And not only did we hear awful language, we saw really inappropriate behavior as well. I mean REALLY inappropriate behavior. I was at the front of the canoe so I would just tell the rest of my family, "Don't look to your left."

I cracked up because at one point during the day, we passed an especially obnoxious group, and Ross said, "It smells like Busch Stadium." And it did!

If we try to organize another float trip next year, I don't think I want our family to go. I don't want my kids exposed to that environment, and frankly I don't want to be exposed to that environment. I think I might go again if we went on a weekday. I'm sure there will still be some unsavory characters, but I wouldn't think it would be so bad.

There was one episode that had me laughing hysterically Saturday. To my friends that know about my bad habit of laughing when someone gets a little hurt - it was one of those times. As I said, I was in the front of the canoe. Elizabeth, Ross, and Edward were behind me. We were coming up to a crowded spot in the river, and of course I had a front row view. There were two guys that had tipped that were trying to get their canoe up out of the water. We were headed straight for one guy that had his back to us and his legs spread apart. He was slightly bending over. We were headed straight at him. To me, we were going in slow motion, and there was nothing I could do about it. I felt my giggles coming on as we started to take aim. Sure enough, the pointy nose of our canoe goosed him! And the current made us keep going. He yelled, "Whoop!" and had to stand up on his tip-toes. We literally lifted him up onto the nose of our canoe. By this time I was laughing so hard I couldn't breathe! I managed to wheeze out a "sorry," but I don't know how sincere he thought I was. He managed to get himself wedged off our canoe and helped push us on our way. I don't know how much of it he remembered the next day, but I have a feeling he might be a little sore on his back side. When we floated far enough away that I didn't worry about him hearing us, I was howling with laughter. I couldn't even catch my breath. I couldn't even paddle. I couldn't even move. When we got further down the river and caught up with my sister's family, they asked what was going on. They said they could hear me laughing way down the river and knew something good was happening. It. Was. FUNNY.

Lunch Break

You can see some of the fog.


The fog was actually pretty neat.


Harrison & Emmy (nephew & niece)

Emmy & Grant (niece & nephew)
Elizabeth & Emmy