We got the tents set up. It was super hot, though. Bogey was scared, but then he wasn't scared , and then he was scared again. So he was in and out of my sister's car (and then underneath my sister's car) until it was time to go to bed, and then he got to hide in the tent. Everyone forgot to get some firewood and even though it was hot, the wood Jerry hunted and gathered from near the campsite, was still a little damp and didn't burn very well. But, thanks to the determination and expert fire-making skills of Jerry, Matt, and Mark, the campfire was burning nicely in less than an hour. The boys did a great job. Because I'm lame, I was the first to go to bed that night, although I think I was the last to fall asleep. It was so very, very hot and so hard to go to sleep. Plus, I was able to listen to the soap opera going on at 2 am at the campsite next to ours. Seriously, if we were part of a horror movie, the people in the campsite next to ours would have been the first killed off. One guy lost the bowl for his pot and needed the guy who wasn't getting any from the girl who was insecure about her intelligence and going to school to get a degree in Business Administration, to help him find his bowl, but the insecure girl didn't want the guy to leave the tent because she was scared and the guy looking for his bowl needed to find it so he could smoke some more pot before he want to sleep but the guy who wasn't getting any just needed to pee. Finally I fell asleep.
We had 33 people floating in our group. My sister told everyone the start time was going to be 9:30. Everyone finally showed up by 11 am, and we got started. We had beer, jello shots (melon fusion, pineapple, tropical fruit fusion, and blackberry fusion), vodka and lemonade. There might have even been some wine. We also had fried chicken from Schnucks. This is surprisingly good on a float trip.
So, I was making fun of Jerry because he was getting worked up because JJ accidentally bought suncreen that wasn't waterproof, and he was really worrying about getting burned Well, shortly before we got started and shortly after we were on our way, I realized I hadn't packed my waterproof sunscreen in the cooler like I had planned. Instead I had left it on the picnic table at the campsite. And, my sister's sunscreen was only SPF 8 and the waterproof sunscreen we did have wasn't enough for 5 adults. I'm sure you can see where this story is headed.
Our fellow floaters were very friendly. At one point I decided to participate in a game. I don't know what it's called, but you cut the top off a wiffle ball bat, and then fill it with beer. Someone counts down how long it takes for you to drink the beer. And then you have to put the bat end on the ground and your forehead on top of the bat and spin around once for every second it took you to drink the beer. And then ,when you are finished, you have to hit the crushed beer can with the bat just like you would in baseball. We discovered, in the game, you are either a good drinker or a good spinner. Most people are not both. I'm a good spinner. It took me 12 seconds to drink the beer. I only fell once at the end of the 12 spins, but it took me 3 tries to hit the can with the bat. The following pictures are really unattractive pictures of me and I can't see how to crop them to make them more appealing, but they made me laugh so I'm including them.
It was hot all day long and then It started raining for about 15 minutes. The rain was really cold and hard. We weren't sure what was the safest course of action to avoid getting hit by lighting. If we got out of the water, we would be in the trees, but the water isn't really the safest place for lightning either. At least we weren't in the metal canoes.
The rain stopped and the sun and beautiful weather returned. We were only another hour from the end. (Quote of the day: "The end is just around the bend.") The last hour was delightful because we saw a huge black snake swimming through the water just feet away from us. I was not getting out of the raft after that. I did look the snake up on the internet when we got back home and I think it was a Black Rat Snake from the constrictor family of snakes. My sister saw a brown snake which the consensus is that it was a water moccasin. (Also known as a cottonmouth. Here's a "shout out" to Billy for being right about that. And I'm sending a "shout out" to myself for being right that Thaddeus was one of the 12 disciples. Baptists beat the Catholics on that bit of trivia!) We finally ended the trip around 5:30 pm. Six and a half hours of floating is too long.
We finally got back to the campsite and gathered our stuff for the showers. The girl's showers were ice cold. The boy's showers were nice and warm. That sucked, but it was nice to not smell as bad. I also got the first of three comments from random strangers about the severity of my sunburn. Apparently, when you have a sunburn you should spray yourself with apple cider vinegar to take the sting out and turn the red into a golden brown. We headed back to the campsite and I was already tired as heck from the sun and the exercise, but I was determined to stay up until 10 pm. My sister was in bed by 8:30 due to a bad headache. They started up the grill as soon as we got back from the showers and we dined on hot dogs, hamburgers, bratwurts, kebobs, pasta salad, chips, cookies, etc. until everyone was full. I even had a s'mores. We stayed up chit chatting about things. Jerry and Matt were banned from the fire because Michelle was camping and when Michelle camps, she controls the fire. The boys were unable to play "I wonder if this burns". Maybe next time. I was in bed and asleep by 10 pm but woke up at 2:30 am for no reason and then couldn't go back to sleep. I started thinking about random drunk hoosiers in big trucks deciding it would be fun to drive through the campsites running over the tents with people sleeping inside them. Then I started thinking about a brown recluse spider climbing inside my tent and biting my bare foot. And then I started thinking about the snakes that live in the nearby woods. What if they wanted to come inside my tent? And then I checked my cell phone to see what time it was. A short time after that a firefly started hanging out outside of our tent. I assume he want to have little firefly babies with my cell phone light. And then I started thinking about how the poor firefly was wasting his time trying to attract my cell phone instead of getting a real live mate. Fireflies don't live that long, and he was spending his precious minutes on this earth trying his best to be the hot stud muffin he needed to be, if he was going to help fireflies continue on with their species, and he was wasting his hot stud muffin-ness on my cell phone which couldn't return his passionate love. How sad. Anyway, I fell asleep at that point.
The next morning, we packed up our stuff and headed home. When we stopped to check out at the campsite main office. The girl behind the counter became the second random stranger to comment on the severity of my sunburn. Tara, Bogey, and I had Sonic for lunch on the way home. I love Sonic. We stopped to get gas later and the dude working the counter became the third random stranger to comment on the severity of my sunburn. So needless to say, my body hurts and my face and boobs are peeling today.
