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(continued) 2:01 PM
Is that a rope swing?!?! Fuck yeah!
There was an old Victorian style house on the side of the river. The kind of house where you imagined that the owners would not appreciate three guys dragging their raft onto the property and subsequently utilizing the rope swing in their back yard. But surely enough that is what we did. Each attempt got bigger, each run up got longer, every swing of the pendulum got higher, and each flop in the water more painful. Of course no one was wearing a lifejacket and every time we crashed in the river, we would have to swim back up river like a salmon just to get to the rope swing again.
To prove that this rope swing had never been used in the manner we were employing it to, the rope started knocking off branches, large branches as the upswings into the river got greater. Branches shattered and disassembled like they were attacked by machine gun fire. In case you skipped the class on photosynthesis and tree growth in school, large branches don't grow overnight. We were seriously fracturing branches that had been growing since the Harding administration. Not to mention the fact that these branches were hurtling on top of us after we plunged awkwardly in the river following a failed backflip dismount or some equally stupid maneuver.
The last swing of the day came from my brother. As he accelerated upwards towards the heavens, the rope 2 inches from being parallel with the river, he let go but the rope got wrapped around his leg like he was a Cirque de Soleil performer. Splintering sounds accompanied an "Oh fuck" from my brother. The branch to which the rope was attached, parted ways with the tree and the rope loosened it's twisting vice like grip on his leg. He, the rope and a branch the size of totem pole plummeted into the water simultaneously. Had that branch not parted ways with the trunk of the tree, his leg probably would have been de-hipped from his body, an occurrence which most definitely would have sucked ass. He came up for air amongst raining leaves and bark and once we got the thumbs up that he was ok, the three of us burst into laughter.
It was time to go. The property now had splintered wood everywhere, matted grass, and minus one rope swing. We got into our raft and exited the premises faster than Navy Seals.
3:34 PM
It was hot. Like, for real hot. If I had been blindfolded and someone asked me where I was, the Mekong Delta wouldn't have been too many guesses away. How had we not eaten lunch yet? By the look at our watches, we had almost been on the river for 5 hours. The end must be near. We kept our eyes peeled for the covered bridge which was in the vicinity of the end point of our voyage last time. Famished, we took out our food and the river slowed our progress to the speed of a moving glacier.
Seriously, we didn't move more than 10 feet in a minute's time. No exaggeration. Glass flows faster than we were. Sap oozing down a tree trunk would have screamed past us at an alarming pace. Finally putting food in my mouth made me stop and think about how bad I hurt. Everything hurt. I seemed to have formed new muscles just so they could ache. The chafe on my thighs and nether region must have looked like an outbreak of chicken pox. It certainly hurt as much. God the sun was intense. We really didn't talk much. I don't know what shell shock feels like but man, I bet we could have related.
We finished eating and we all had the urge to sleep, we couldn't fight it.
While the rope still acted as a swing.
4:16 PM
Maybe it was the sun's constant assault on the top of my eyelids or maybe it was 3.5 billion years of an evolving survival instinct, but I woke up. As I lay like a corpse on one length of the pontoon I opened my eyes to the sky. What was overhead took a while to comprehend but when I finally realized what was going on, I awoke my brother. 'Dude.' I pointed up. He looked. 'Holy Shit!' Above us were about 6-7 hawks, circling, not more than 30 feet overhead. Yes hawks, buzzards, those that feast on the dead and the weak. They were huge! There we were, 3 bodies lying in the middle of a motionless river. We had to have been dead. I don't blame them for their rationalization; however I DID want to live. We grabbed our oars and started waving them frantically until the entourage above us broke up and flew away, disappointed.
The three of us just looked in the eyes of each of our sun burnt selves and silently digested the fact that we were just mistaken for carcasses. We gotta get home.
Looking ahead, we saw that the covered bridge was maybe 0.25 miles away. Salvation! The end was near, maybe another 0.5 miles or so. We reacted like rescued captives from the Bataan Death March. We hugged each other and cheered and possibly even shed a tear. But elation was soon replaced with extreme fatigue as none of us could stay awake! We played Rochambeau for who would have to stay awake. The loser awaiting his sentence like it was Russian Roulette. In the end, everyone called shenanigans if they lost so we decided that we could all sleep and that they would yell for us as we were passing. Staying awake was an impossibility. Let me repeat that. We were too tired to stay awake to paddle for less than half a mile to our end point!!!
We all slept.
4:45 PM
The sleep I had was a deep sleep but then I heard something. The sound of an accelerating car followed by the sound of that same car severely DEcelerating. The skid of tires. The halting sound of an engine turning off. A door opening. Footsteps in quick succession on the pavement and then onto rocks.
'HEYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!! What are you guys DOING?!?!?!'
The three of us awoke abruptly, trying to get our bearings as we were sprawled around every inch of the raft, out cold only a moment before. We looked to the side of the river and there was our rafting guide with his arms spread out wide. Our savior. Our messiah. Wait, this doesn't look right. His van is stopped in the middle of the road on the side of the river. With the driver's side door still opened, the only audible sound at that moment was the 'ding ding' sound a car makes when you leave the keys in the ignition and the door remains open. That is how still and silent the river was at that moment.
We looked at him in confusion like, 'What the fuck is his problem?' My brother asked the only logical, the only POSSIBLE question.
'What, did we pass it????'
'NO!!! YOU HAVE ANOTHER FIVE MI-...'
His last word got cut off from a passing car on the road so my brother asked for clarification,
'MINUTES?'
'MILES!!'
...wow...
It took us 7 hours to go 5 miles. 2 hours longer than it was supposed to take us to go 10 miles. That's 0.7 miles/hr. The trip the previous summer my brother and I did? Yup, the 5 mile one.
'AND YOU HAVE TO HURRY BECAUSE THEY SHUT OFF THE WATER AT THE DAMN AT 5:30!!'
What the fuck?!
Flashback: When we were NOT listening to our guide give us his lecture before we got in our rafts, he was telling us how the flow of water to this section of the river is halted at 5:30 PM for some reason or another. Whatever the reason was, the three of us agreed that it was asinine at this moment in time.
4:50 PM
Unhappily, we grabbed our paddles and started to row. No one said a word.
6:20 PM
We kept getting stuck on more and more rocks in the middle of this fucking river. It was absurd. Rocks would jab into our asses as we grinded over them in knee deep water. Numerous times we all had to get out of the raft and CARRY the fucking thing 50 yards down river to a spot where the water was a little deeper. At this point the chafing on my balls had me limping like Kaiser Soze. I wanted to cry.
7:02 PM
Each paddle into the river wasn't so much us whisking through the water as much as it was us planting our oars in the mud like a shovel, grabbing the top of the handle and pushing ourselves forward in that manner. Yes, this was less tiring than carrying the damn thing.
We passed a bunch of fisherman in our raft. They looked at us like we were a donkey show.
As if he was stating a fact no more evident than the color of grass, one gentleman said, 'You know that in about 1 hour there won't be any water, right?'
'So we were told…Do you know how long ago the rest of the group came through here?'
'About 5 hours.' ...
7:50 PM
Yeah it was like this but without all the water.
The sun is practically setting. Having carried our raft the last 100 yards or so because we were literally walking on dirt at this point, we found our guide sleeping in the front seat of the van. He saw us and didn't say ONE word. He got out, helped us get the raft on the roof of the van and drove us back, violently, to the lodge where our car was.
It took us 10 hours to do 10 miles. That's a mile an hour. Fuckin a.
If you're ever so inclined... http://www.clarkeoutdoors.com/ but do it in the spring time, not July. Trust me.
Posts: 1265 Rank: 7 Joined:
12/7/2006
Location:
TPP Island, NY
Posted: 8/16/2007 8:12:12 AM
Before i read this i saw the author was Bassam, first thought: a guy named Bassam probably hangs out with guys named Emirhan.
Subsequent to reading this, i thought: I maybe related to this freak.
Seriously this story was great, i hope it's a true story. It reminds me of canoeing down the Shannandoa River in VA. The trip is about 4 miles but with all the fucking around that I do along the way it takes about 5 hours, I'm not sure how that works either. Actually i have done that trip in about 2 hours it was with a girlfriend and another couple, it was the least fun i ever had on a canoe. Chicks take the fun out of everything, except violent, degrating, violent sex acts. *I know i said violent twice*
Posts: 1542 Rank: 6 Joined:
12/7/2006
Location:
New York, NY
Posted: 8/16/2007 9:38:45 AM
I like that someone took the time to put togehter a cohesive narrative on this site. I think it should be pointed out that your biggest mistake on this trip was that you weren't drinking.
Posts: 1265 Rank: 7 Joined:
12/7/2006
Location:
TPP Island, NY
Posted: 8/16/2007 10:06:43 AM
Balls i don't know how i missed that, but if i had the power of spartan* you would get 23(+)s from me for that but alas i only have 1 to give you but you earned it my friend.
Posts: 17 Rank: 1980 Joined:
12/7/2006
Location:
Cracklanta, GA
Posted: 8/16/2007 10:54:58 AM
Reminds me of the time we went rafting, got drunk, the cops ticketed a few of us for littering after our empty-beer-can fight, feelings were hurt, punches were thrown, other drunken inbreds tried to start fights with us.
and guess what, I've been on a few rafting trips myself, but since I'm not gonna write a funny descriptive story like this guy, I'll shut the fuck up about and say, I found this funny because I could relate to being a jackass on the river wth my friends. (take note ladies, nobody wants to hear, "this one time I went rafting..." unless you have an exceptionally funny story.
Igick, Bassam has been money with pretty much everything he's thrown out there, I'm guessing that you probably just don't look at the author much.
Anybody in the PA area check out the Youghiogheny River. Awesome rapids, class IV and V the right time of year, and serious waterfalls to go over.
Posts: 134 Rank: 14 Joined:
5/11/2007
Location:
St. Louis, MO
Posted: 8/16/2007 11:31:25 AM
This was kind of sad. I apologize in advance for sounding like a self-righteous dildo, but I live a few miles from a nice river and have been floating since I was a kid and more times than I can count.
1. As previously mentioned, where the fuck was the beer? 2. The Housatonic River is a great fishing destination. I'd understand if you didn't want to get a Mack boat and match the hatch, but you could have at least got a line wet. 3. It seems like it was a low gradient stream and it wasn't in flood stage or high release levels from the dam, so why the fuck a pontoon/raft instead of a canoe? I guess the guide had you guys marked as "short bus specials" and played it safe. I've done 9 miles in 3 hours in a canoe while my wife sat up front taking it easy. And I got some fishing in.
Posts: 214 Rank: 16 Joined:
12/14/2006
Location:
Pasadena, CA
Posted: 8/16/2007 12:03:58 PM
but I was moving to LA.
The lst time I remember going out on a river was a tubing trip in high school. I separated from the pack with a friend's sister and she gave me a handjob underwater.
Asmar brought a story that had something special about it.
Getting even a handy (patheric) from a friends sister is always special. That moment when you meet back up with the group and say what up to your buddy is funny, what's better is a week or so later when you're all hammered up and you drop the bomb.
Posts: 291 Rank: 25 Joined:
12/7/2006
Location:
East Lansing, MI
Posted: 8/16/2007 1:00:21 PM
My dad used to race canoes in various races across Michigan. He likes to regale us with his stories of halucinating at 4 a.m. on the Bear River midnight races, and how he'd overtake weaker paddlers while insulting them in Polish and Italian slurs about their canoing skills. Ever since I was a wee tot, we'd be out canoeing various rivers, and he'd give me sage advice like not to "counter drag the keel during a J-stroke", so I feel your pain, I really do.
I got a lot of shit from my friends for not being able to do anything because I "was going canoeing with my dad...again". They called me a pussy and daddy's little girl because I went canoeing with him a shit-ton. Needless to say they haven't laughed since I knocked out their teeth with a beaver tail paddle.
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