Spring Break/Canoe Trip

Well, this is obviously a bit late… but I guess that’s ok. At least I have something to write as an update.

March 9th:
The school bell rang at 3:45 in the p.m. My students left the classroom to enjoy 10 days of no school… as did I. I took care of the few things I needed to take care of before I could sign out and leave the school. By 4 in the p.m. I was in my car and on my way to Mississippi. Everything seemed to be going well until I was about 20 miles away from Temple. I decided to go to I-20 (rather than I-10) because I was hoping to make it into Dallas in time to eat dinner with my sister and my brother-in-law as well as with Andy an Laura. Well, it sounded like a good idea… but traffic was pretty much stopped. What’s that? Oh yeah, I completely forgot about Spring Break traffic, rush-hour work traffic, as well as normal weekend traffic. What this translates to is me managing to go about 25 miles in 5 hours. Around 10 in the p.m. I decided to just pull over, take a nap, and hope that traffic would clear up by the time I woke up. Thankfully, it did. I woke up then continued with my drive. I made it to Dallas around midnight.

March 10th:
I was still driving to Mississippi. Needless to say, I skipped dinner with Ashley, Mike, Andy and Laura. It turned out, Ashley and Mike were on their way to California and wouldn’t have been able to eat dinner with me anyways… and Andy and Laura were in Wisconsin and were also unavailable for dinner. So it all worked out in the end. I ended up at Mike’s house (not Mike my brother-in-law). Mike and I ended up sleeping until about 11:45 in the a.m. We were planning on waking up around 9 in the a.m. to make all of our last minute purchases so we could be out on the Red Creek around 3 in the p.m. Obviously, this wasn’t going to happen. Anyways, Mike and I rushed to the store to purchase food (and beer) for the next 4 days. Once all the food was bought we went back to his parents’ house to put it all in the cooler and get everything that we needed into Mike’s truck. After that, we stopped at a sporting goods store so Mike could buy a bit of equipment that he needed to replace. At this point, I realized that I left my hiking/camping boots at my house… in Austin. So, I got to buy a new pair of boots while we were at this store. Now we were ready to get to the river. How far away was it? 3 hours away… in the middle of nowhere (which is good, we were going to do some real camping). We managed to get out on the river sometime around 9 in the p.m. Since it was pitch black we didn’t manage to go very far downstream. However, we did get far enough away from the bridge that we weren’t able to hear any cars that may have driven by. Mike and I set up camp for the night, talked, smoked, and drank a bit, then went to sleep.

March 11th:
I’m not sure what time I woke up, but I woke up sometime in the middle of the night because I was freezing. We were sleeping on sand… which seemed to be like sleeping on a sheet of ice. Guess what sleeping bag I brought. My super-thin fleece sleeping bag. I got the fire back to a comfortable temperature, warmed my feet and body up a bit, then went back to sleep. I woke up again (and again, I’m not sure how long I had been asleep) because I was freezing again. I got out of my pathetic “sleeping bag” and sat as close to the warm coals as I could. I didn’t want to get up to get more fire wood because when we walked on the sand it make this weird noise and I didn’t want to wake Mike up. But after awhile I couldn’t take the cold any more. I got up as quietly as I could and managed to find enough fire wood to last for a few more hours. Once I started stacking the wood over the coals, Mike woke up. He and I talked for a few minutes, then he gave me his foam pad to put between me and the sand. He said he didn’t need it since his sleeping bag was designed to keep you warm in colder temperatures. This pad is only about a quarter of an inch thick, but it was enough insulation that it helped keep me warm for the remainder of the night.

Mike and I woke up sometime that morning and enjoyed some sausage and fried eggs. Once we packed all of our gear back into the canoe we officially began our canoe trip. Our goal was to paddle for a total of 56 miles over the course of the next 4 days.

So we paddled for several hours then stopped to eat lunch. Once we finished eating we continued on downstream. The river had a bit of debris left over from hurricane Katrina. This made maneuvering the canoe a tad tricky. But we managed. We stopped a few hours later to set up camp.

Mike and I dug a ditch into the sandbar that we chose for our campsite. We also dug a place on the side of our ditch to keep the fire. We then placed a tarp over the top of our hole. Once the shelter was completed, Mike and I gathered up enough firewood for the night. We had another amazing meal as well as great conversation. The shelter did an amazing job of holding the fire’s heat in as we slept that night.

March 12th:
Mike and I awoke and had oatmeal for breakfast. We then packed up our gear once again and canoed for the next several hours. By this point, I started getting a headache. Mike’s shoulder wasn’t doing so hot either. So this day we didn’t make it very far down the river. We stopped a short while after eating lunch and decided we could go no further for the day. By this time my head was pounding. I apologized to Mike because I knew I was going to be of no help with the shelter or the collection of wood until this headache went away. I laid down on the sand, tied my bandana over my eyes, and fell asleep. I woke up several hours later because it started getting cold again. Now my head was pounding even harder than before. I looked around and noticed that the shelter had already been dug, the wood had already been gathered, and Mike was just moments away from having dinner finished. I got up off the sandbar and walked into the shelter. I don’t remember much of the night after that. I remember eating dinner. I remember trying not to puke the dinner up because my head was aching so badly. I remember taking 3 extra strength Tylenols. And I remember waking up after dark to a sound in the woods behind us. Mike looked at me. I looked at Mike. We then whispered “What the hell is that?” It was something… or someone walking in the woods. We sat quietly and listened the best we could. My head was still pounding. The footsteps seemed to get closer. Then stop. Get closer. Then stop. Mike then got out of the shelter, K-Bar in hand. (For those who may not know, a K-Bar is a giant knife that the Marines carry when out in the field.) He then said that I should come out there with him. So I too went outside with my K-Bar and stood next to Mike. After a few minutes the footsteps stopped. Mike and I went back into the shelter, and that’s all I remember until I woke up the next morning.

March 13th:
My headache was gone! While Mike was getting breakfast ready, we realized something. Our steaks and our bacon weren’t in the cooler. Neither of us remembered actually seeing the meat after leaving the grocery store a few days prior. This meant that the only way we would have enough food for the rest of the trip was if we were careful with our consumption of the remaining food.

After we ate breakfast we got back on the river and canoed for another several hours.

We came across the bridge that was 15 miles from where we were dropped off on the first night of the trip. As you can tell, we were way behind schedule. There was no way we would make another 45 miles in only 2 days. We pulled in under the bridge and tied the canoe to a nearby bush. We then walked about a mile down the road to a gas station. I have no idea how anyone would know this is a gas station… because there was no sign on the small building. However, there were two ancient gas pumps out front. Mike and I went inside. They served sandwiches and hamburgers! Woohoo! If we ate here, we would still have plenty of food for the rest of the trip. Also, this gas station sold bacon and various canned goods. Mike and I ate one of the most amazing sandwiches I have ever eaten, and we bought a bit of extra food. Another reason we needed to make it to this gas station was so that we could use a phone and let Mike’s parents know that we were going to need to be picked up at the next bridge rather than the second upcoming bridge. We would’ve just made the call from Mike’s cell phone, but like I mentioned earlier, we were in the middle of nowhere and there was not a single bar of reception.

Once we were finished, we walked back down the road to our canoe, then paddled on for another couple of hours. We stopped and made camp for the night.

March 14th:
We ran into a few troubles once we got back on the river. The biggest problem was the river split. This wasn’t too big of a deal because Mike and his brother had previously canoed down this river before and he knew that going to the right would be the easier of the two paths. Well… I guess it used to be easier. To the left was a few fallen trees that made a perfect dam. To the right… it looked to be clear. We went to the right, but then realized that there were so many fallen trees and debris that it was practically impossible to get through. So we paddled upstream until we were in shallow enough water that Mike was able to get out and pull the canoe back to the tree-dam. We then pulled a few of the heavy items out of the canoe and set them up on the fallen trees. We then used every bit of strength we had to lift the canoe up and over the dam. After getting the heavy supplies back into the canoe, we were off again.

We made our last shelter of the trip seeing as how this was our last night. I noticed that in just a few days that not only did the quality of our shelters improve, but we were also able to dig the hole and get the shelters set up faster.

We had a fun-filled night of talking and fishing until we decided to go to bed.

March 15th:
We woke up, ate breakfast, gathered our things, and got back out on the river. We had to paddle like madmen since we weren’t exactly sure how much further we had until we’d reach our new pickup point.

A few hours went by then Mike said to stop rowing and help him with the tarp. I was a bit confused at the comment but then I felt what Mike felt. It was starting to sprinkle. Once we positioned the tarp over our gear we continued on with our rowing.

The rain picked up, but that was ok. The rain just enhanced the beauty of the scenery as well and giving us that clean air scent that only comes during and just after a rain.

After about an hour of rowing in the rain I saw a very interesting thing. I saw a momma duck and about 7 ducklings following behind her. This wasn’t the first duck that we had seen on the trip, but it was the first duck we saw that had ducklings. Now, when we came too close to the other ducks they would just fly away. Momma duck, however, did not. She did fly away, but she flew away with her feet slapping the water while making as much noise as she possibly could. I found this fascinating. I wasn’t really sure why she did this at first, but then it clicked. This was a defense mechanism for her babies. Oddly enough, it worked. We were distracted long enough that when we looked back towards the ducklings, we couldn’t find them. We decided to go a bit closer to the ducklings to see how momma duck would react. She came flying back around behind us and began slapping her feet in the water and making all kinds of noise as she flew back past us. After we decided that momma duck was probably freaked out enough we continued on down river.

We made it to the bridge around 2:30 in the p.m. Instead of going straight to the bridge, we stopped on another sandbar to have lunch. We weren’t in any big hurry because we weren’t supposed to be picked up until 5 in the p.m. Around 4:15 in the p.m. we decided to get over to the bridge in case Mike’s mom showed up early.

After waiting for about an hour (5:30) Mike’s mom arrived with Mike’s truck. She apologized for being an hour and a half late. Mike and I thought she was going crazy because she was only 30 minutes late… which wasn’t a big deal at all. She then looked at us like we were crazy and informed us that it was in fact 6:30 in the p.m.

Oh yeah… daylight savings time. ;)

We made it back to Mike’s place a few hours after we had dinner. We then slept.

March 16th:
After packing my things back into my car, and after hanging out for a bit, I began my drive back to Texas. I made it into Dallas around 9 in the p.m. and met up with brother-in-law Mike, Ashley, and Andy (Laura was out with a friend for the moment). After dinner, I decided to just stay the night with Andy and Laura. We had a great time just hanging, drinking, smoking, and talking.

March 17th:
I woke up and met Ashley for breakfast (lunch, actually) at IHOP. Once we finished eating and talking I continued on back to Austin.

That night, JJ and Sam came over to hang out. Again, we all had a good time of hanging out, drinking, smoking, and talking.

March 18th:
Sunday night is a blog-post in itself, so I may save that for a later time. :)

Anyways, that was my Spring Break. I had a blast. The river and its surroundings were absolutely beautiful. It’s always great to get out in the middle of God’s creation and just enjoy the “simple” things in life.