Don Jose, Tropical Tramp extraordinaire wrote
Incidentally Beth / Oro, you both are sadly lacking in here. <snip, and also>
...where are Roy's confessions ?
Well I have been enjoying the stories of others, and should not each member share at least one story, sort of the 'price of admission' ? No? Besides, I sure don't have stories to match those you fellows have been sharing.
In a very poor attempt to entertain, I can tell you about my first white-water rafting trip. I was 14, and had sent away for an Army surplus two man rubber raft, as I had read in the great outdoor magazines how exciting it was to go white water rafting and wanted to do it. The nearest such water was only a few miles from my home, and as far as I knew no one had ever run that creek since Colonial days. There it is called a 'crick' but a waterway of this particular size in a western state would be considered a good sized river, as with many terms in northern Appalachia things sound a bit different, like a small valley is not a "holler" it is a "hollow", mountain lions are "painters" etc. So with my new rubber raft, I got my father to drop me off about twelve miles up the creek; I had a plan that I would raft until I got to a particular fishing hole near my home, pull out there, deflate the boat and hike home.
I put into the water and hollered to my father that I was fine, no leaks in the raft, thanks & see you later. The current was pretty good and I didn't feel a need to paddle for a little ways, but it was a bit of a shock to discover that with only one paddle, the rubber raft would not move at all, only spin in the water by any paddling effort. That was a bit disconcerting to me, as I knew from reading those exciting tales in Outdoor Life and Sports Afield that you must be able to move down the stream faster than the current in order to have any control at all. But I was not in serious trouble yet, and thought well I will just ride on down. Figuring out how to get out of the main current, which was fairly high as it was mid-March and rushing/muddy was a problem I had not yet done.
About two miles down the creek, as it swung ever further in the wide swing before it would eventually get to the next point near a road (that fishing hole mentioned earlier, some ten miles still down further) the water was pretty rough. I got a good cold soaking getting through the rapids and came to a long straight stretch without many large boulders but at the end of it, instead of a nice set of white water, I could see a massive log jam that completely blocked the creek with a very deadly looking whirlpool under it. I could see small branches ahead of me, getting pulled down under that log jam and out of sight. Ominously, I could see a HALF of a canoe sticking in the middle of the logs. I knew that I was in serious trouble now, and for all my frantic paddling could not make that rubber boat move other than in a circle. About six feet before getting sucked under that log jam, a tiny twig of a branch hung out over the creek, and I was just desperate enough to make a grab and catch it. It was so small (less than my pinky) that it would not hold me and the boat against that current, and I refused to let that boat go and be lost, <
over a dozen muskrats had given their very lives for me to own that watercraft> so I hooked my feet under the rubber/canvas strap for a seat, and with the suction from that whirlpool pulling so hard you would not believe it, I pulled on that little branch and worked my way hand-over-hand, the branch cracking and snapping each second as if about to give way, until I got all the way to shore, boat and all.
I now decided that perhaps I had missed a step or three in my preparations for going white water rafting (a class might have helped a bit, if there were such classes in my area, and of course they didn't have such things then) and it might be wiser to just quit and go home. After deflating the raft I rolled it up and slung it over my shoulder, thinking I could just hike up to the nearest road and then hitch a ride home. That course of action did in fact work, but it turned out to be a bit over three miles out to the nearest road, and as my "luck" would have it, I managed to hike most of the rest of the way down the road before a car finally did pass by that I could get a ride from. I was one tired puppy, but far wiser for the next attempt at white water rafting.
Sorry for having fallen short in the story department, but not all of us have had such exciting adventures as some of you fellows have had. Oh and for the record,
wearing a cape does NOT do the trick for jumping off of tall buildings, ask me how I found out. LOVE the stories, please keep 'em coming! Sock coffee anyone?
Oroblanco
The Lock & dam From earlier post: Hildebrand. 
You better quit reading our mail or come to the family reunion 
