George recently wrote of his exploits on a hiking/camping trip in SC. I read this and had to chuckle. It reminded me of a canoing/camping trip my brother-in-law, a friend of his, and I went on about 13 years ago.
My brother-in-law Bill came home from work one day (we were staying with them in Oklahoma while I went through C-17 school) with the crazy idea for this canoe trip over a weekend. We would pack up our stuff in the canoe and paddle down the mighty Red River to a highway overpass in Texas, where our wives would pick us up. Sounds great, right?
The problems started almost immediately. We dropped the canoe and loaded it up with our stuff at a convenient spot. We three grown men hopped in and, with cavalier waves to the wives, started off on our journey. We got about 100 feet before we hit the first sand bar, our canoe grinding to a halt. We had to get out and pull the canoe to a deeper part of the river. This went on like that for the next 6 hours. See, the Red River is really a river in name only. There's barely any water in it. Tough to canoe when there's no water. It was like paddling in the rain gutters on the side of the road after a light rain.
We hiked/paddled/hiked/paddled/hiked/paddled all together for about 12 hours before we gave up, walked to a nearby farmhouse, and called our wives to come get us. They laughed and laughed. Lewis and Clark we were not.
George, at least you guys saved face and made it to your car.
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2 comments:
That hilarious! I heard about a similar canoe trip that my uncle took. Except that he kept having trouble with all the water moccasons hanging from the trees and coming after him in the water. Good thing he had a gun.
Perhaps you should have eliminated some weight in the canoes for better boyancy. Perhaps throw out the case of Spam.
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