2005-07-23 23:00:00
Oh White Water, Keep On Runnin'
This weekend was fun. It was the annual camping and rafting trip at Ohiopyle (or nearby). We camped at the Tall Oaks campground, which is in the middle of nowhere. Seriously, the only store within a long way was an Woodland World.Friday around noon Mary met me at work. We stopped over at the other building, where they have a cookout on Friday's, and ate lunch there. Then we went to Eric's house and helped him pack. He had a lot of stuff. I mean, he and Stacy don't pack for camping, they move. It took Mary and I about 5 minutes to set up our tent, which compared to everyone else's, was very small. But we decided to help Jim set his up, then helped Eric set up the big tent where we would store our food and such. He got this tent from Sears for $50. It was the floor model, and because of that he didn't get any directions or some other stuff we didn't need. But we later found out that we were one leg short. This thing had 6 legs, each containing 3 2-foot pieces. We were missing one 2-foot piece. So we had to improvise, and Eric took some smaller legs that were for a tarp he had, taped them together, and taped that to the bottom of the leg that was missing a piece. So now the tent was up. Next was unpacking all of the coolers and food and other stuff like that. Once we did that, we took a trip to the Woodlands store and hit up the beer place on the way back. Now that we were all set, it was time to start the party. It seemed everyone liked the Captain, as everyone brought a bottle or handle of it. I started with a Yuengling, had an Engine Cleaner and Coke (Jim brought some Black Label Captain Jamaican Rum and it was like engine cleaner), a lot of regular Captain and Coke's, a mini bottle of Yukon Jack, then finished with another Yuengling. That saying, "Beer before liquor, never sicker," didn't apply. I wasn't sick the next day. Anyway, later on, Eric, Mary, and I went on a walk, throughout the campground. We walked up the road and started down a field. We made it to the end of the field to another uninhabited campsite when we saw trucklights coming at us. They kept getting closer. Finally, we decided it would be best to not get run over by the truck, so we hid in the field (which was chest-high weeds). After the truck passed we walked back to our campsite and finished out the night, which was rain-filled. Yup, it poured on us. Luckily, Eric had his 80 foot tarp, which we pulled up over top of the big tent we were in. That kept the rain out. But my tent was another story. I've had it since around 6th grade. The material was wearing out, it was very thin. We got dripped on during the night. Not just from the seams, but through the material. So we scrunched into the middle of the tent and went to sleep.
Saturday was fun. We arrived at the Trading Post for rafting a little after 11:30. We (Eric, Ryan, Mary, and I) met Aaron, Amanda, and Jimmy there. Ryan and I drove our vehicles to the endpoint of the river and left them there for return purposes and Jimmy hauled us back. Once back, we got out rafts and prepared to go. I didn't know what to expect. I had never done this before. People always tell stories of dimple rock and how hard it to get past it and how you don't want to hit it cause you'll get sucked under. Whatever. It was a blast! We never hit a rapid where I was any amount of scared. It was all fun. And dimple rock, I was expecting more. As long as you're not an idiot, you'll get past it just fine. But the best part was when we got to swimmer's rock. It was above the water about 20 feet, and the water was deep enough there you could jump off. So we all climbed up to the top and jumped. Everyone else went feet first. I didn't get up there to do a loser jump feet first. So what did I do? I jumped head first, as if I was diving, then right before my head hit the water, I finished the rotation (like a delayed front flip). I came up from under the water and, "OWWWWWWWWWwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!" My arms had slapped the water. They realy hurt. I mean, they weren't red, they were maroon. But it was fun. I'd do it again. So anyway, we finished the river, which took us a total of about 4 hours, and proceeded back to the campsite. We got back around 9 (Mary and I stopped and took a shower at the lodge). Saturday night was freakin' cold. I didn't bring any warm clothes either. Eric was nice enough to lend Mary his fleece pullover and me his fleece blanket. Those, combined with the sleeping bag in our tent, worked pretty well.
Sunday was pretty calm. We tore down the campsite in record time and drove home. We stopped at Eric's on the way home to help him unpack, then we went to my house. There we napped/watched Phantom of the Opera, at dinner, swam, and watched Family Guy. By then it was close to 10, so I took Mary home. All in all, it was a very fun weekend. I'm pretty sure everyone who was there had a blast also.
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