Float trip

Friday morning, I woke up and felt like a train had run over me... twice. This reminded me that I am not 21 anymore and can't recover from a big night out like I used to be able to. What was I thinking?!?!

Packing was NO fun. I was just throwing stuff in bags and hoping I wasn't forgetting anything important. Lucky for me, I'm a dork and kept a list of stuff that I wanted to take in a spreadsheet, so I looked at that later just to be sure I had everything. Of course, Matt told everyone about my spreadsheet and they had a field day with that. Thanks, hun. ; )

Packing for a camping trip is much easier when you are driving and not flying and have to check a bag. We had all the essentials, though, and it helped that we were borrowing a tent from Crystal.

The flight was rough... hungover on a flight is always a bad thing, but when the flight is also a bumpy one... not a good combo. Matt was not enjoying it at all. He was lookin' pretty green and was really happy when we finally landed.

We got our rental car, which ended up being a Mazda 5 sport (kind of like an SUV/car). It was definitely bigger than the mid-size economy car I had reserved. It worked out great for the trip. We could have slept in that car if we needed to. Let me just say that the people working in the Hertz counter at the StL airport were about the worst in customer service. We were in a line of about 7 people waiting for a register to open up to process us so we could take the bus to get our car. When we got there, two cashiers were working. When we were about 3 people back in line (which was still growing), one of the cashiers just stopped taking customers. The woman at the front of line says "are you ready for me yet?" and the guy says, "nope, I'm going on lunch" and just left. Nice. He couldn't have spent the extra 10 minutes to help the other cashier get through the rest of us? We just all looked at each other like "is he for real?"... yep, he was.

We drove from the StL airport to Steeleville, MO (about 2 hours). Since our flight had been delayed about an hour and it took forever to get the rental car, we were now driving smack in the middle of rush hour. Awesome.

We had no cooler or food really because we had flown, so we stopped off in Cuba, MO to stock up on supplies. We went to the biggest grocery store we could find. It was called Mace. When we got out of the car, it was SO hot and humid. Matt and I were both thinking that we were going to boil sleeping in a tent. We bought two Bud Light styrofoam coolers and loaded them up with beer, pop, ice, and snacks for the weekend.

We met up with JJ and Jerry for dinner at The Feed Store Bar & Grill (or as Matt kept calling it, "the Feed Bag"). The place was very local, but the food was really good. They had some fun stuff on the walls and the chairs at the bar were made out of tractor seats.


We made it to the campground just as it was getting dark. Luckily, Tara and Crystal had already started setting up me and Matt's tent. The thing was huge! We nicknamed it the Mansion. It was a 7 person tent and I could stand up and walk around in it. So awesome!



We got all set up with our air mattress and lanterns and such. I had bought a battery operated ceiling fan knowing the tent was going to feel like a sauna. That thing came in super handy on Friday night when it was really hot. Just circulating air around helped cool the tent down tons. Of course, it was supposed to hang from the top of "any tent"... except ours, apparently. The fan and tent were both made by Coleman, too, so this made no sense to us. But Matt was able to tie the fan to the top of my suitcase and point it directly at us.

On Friday night, the only people camping were Matt & me, Crystal & Tara, JJ & Jerry and Mark & Erika. The rest joined us Saturday morning before the float.



No one had bought any firewood for Friday night, so Jerry gathered up some stuff and he and Matt proceeded to get a fire going. Matt was determined that we would have an awesome fire. He was a little obsessed. But he did a great job! MVP of Friday night!



The area we were camping in was the "loud area" and people are allowed to play music and be annoying-ly loud until 1am. We paid $5 extra to camp in this area. On Friday night, this was definitely the case. We sat around the fire and had some drinks and sweated. It was a scorcher still. I'm not exactly sure what time we all turned in, but the noise around us didn't stop until about 1:30am. And the campers in the spot next to us were loud and high. We were getting whiffs of it every once in awhile and I was having flashbacks to Amsterdam.

In the morning, we got up and packed our coolers for the float trip. We (Matt, me, Jerry, JJ and Crystal) were sharing a 6-person raft. We had lots of beer, vodka, water, orange Propel (that stuff mixes really well with Absolut Mandarin vodka - my drink of choice), jello-shots, and snacks. We had bought Lunchables (per Crystal's suggestion) and those worked out great. They hit the spot and were totally waterproof.

We bought these cool koozies that go around your neck... they worked out so well on the float!



We started the 6-mile float around 10:30am. I think there were almost 30 of us in the group... mostly lawyers that worked with Tara or had worked with Tara before. A few people took canoes, but most were on 6-person floats. I think that was definitely the way to go... not as much possibility of tipping over and pretty relaxing. The day went along with us floating down the river for a little bit and then stopping off at different points along the way for snack/drink breaks. The river was SO crowded, so every stop was like a party with lots of other people stopped as well. It was kind of like Spring Break... tons of drunk people, some girls flashing for beads or beer, beer bongs, a blow-up doll, etc... you get the picture.

Some highlights (and lowlights) from the float part of the trip...

- At one stop, there was a spring feeding into the river from nearby caves and it was ice-cold. We all walked up to where it was and you couldn't keep your feet in for very long. Now that I think about it, this must have been where the water for the showers in the woman's restroom came from... because they were FREEZING! ; )

- Matt tried to drown me. Not really, but I made the mistake of breathing under water when he dunked me and I inhaled/swallowed about half the river. Disgusting, considering all the people that had been using the river as a bathroom all day long. I also ended up with a bottom full of rocks because it was more shallow than we both expected. Jerry had dunked Matt about 5 seconds earlier and it was lot deeper there.

- Matt almost drowned. Again, not really... but WAY closer than I came to it. Actually, he was hanging onto the raft and floating along and we hit some faster moving water and the raft turned so he was in front of it. Then the water got shallower and he hit bottom and was draggin' a55 along on the rocks (ouch!). He eventually stopped when he hit those rocks, but the raft kept wanting to go forward over the top of him. At first, it was all fun and games (ie, we were laughing at his misfortune), but then I saw the look on his face and realized he was not having any fun, so we jumped out and hung onto the raft so he could get out from underneath it.

- Crystal drank a beer out of a plastic bat and then did a few spins around the bat and totally wiped out on the rocky beach. Ouch! Here's another girl doing the same thing...
Step 1. Drink a beer out of a bat

Step 2. Spin around the bat the number of seconds it took you to drink the beer

Step 3. Try not to wipe out!

Step 4. Hit the beer can with the bat (she didn't get around to this step!)

- Fried chicken is good (wet or dry). Someone brought a ton of fried chicken along for the float and at every stop it was devoured. At one stop, someone from a different group stole one of the tubs of fried chicken right out of the canoe (how terrible is that!) Even after the downpour (and back at the campsite later that night), people were still diggin' into the chicken.

- We saw a huge black snake swim by us. No clue what kind it was, but after that we were a little more hesistant to just jump right in the river.

- About an hour away from the end of the trip, the sky turned an ominous shade of grey and the thunder and lightning started. Not looking good. Yep, a few minutes later, total downpour. I'm talking about the kind of rain that hurts when it hits you. And it was ice-cold. We kept paddling through it, though. I think our logic was that if people in metal canoes were still going ahead with all that lightning, we'd be fine in our raft. At this point, I was wishing I had my rain jacket, but at the last minute in the morning I threw it back in the tent and decided not to bring it (well, it was after everyone scoffed at me for considering to take an umbrella and rain jacket along on the float).

- Drunk people do lots of dumb (& funny) things. Rafts can be made into slides, trampolines, etc. Trees sticking out of the river can be used as if they were a bull ride. A group of drunk guys thought it would be awesome to carry their raft up on top of a hill and use it as a slide to propel them out into the river (which was pretty shallow at that point). Lots of people stopped to watch this scene and I'm pretty sure everyone thought nothing good was going to come of this... but they lived and everyone breathed a sigh of relief. I can't even remember all the other stupid stuff I saw people do.
Erika doing a beer bong


Some girl using a blow-up doll as her raft


Flip the raft over and it's a slide


This had disaster written all over it - drunk guys, raft on top of a hill, shallow water

Jumping off the cliff


Some other random pics from the float...




After we finally made it to the end of the 6-miles ("just around the next bend"... yeah, right!), we boarded the bus back to where we had started. The bus driver drove really fast... like she was driving a race car at the Indy 500 or something. But we made it back alive and the breeze felt nice!

We showered and headed back to the campground. Well, I showered. Matt used this weekend as an excuse not to shower. The river was like a bath for him or something, I guess. Good thing I had the Febreeze in our tent! The women's showers were freezing, as I mentioned before. But for some reason, the guys showers were still hot. What's that about?!? It felt really nice to rinse off. It was 50 cents for about 3 minutes, so I went through $1 because it takes forever to rinse shampoo & conditioner out of my hair.

Back at the campsite, Matt was already working on starting the fire for the night. He's obsessed, I tell you. But, this night, he had some competition for Master of the Fire duties. A friend of Crystal and Tara's was also obsessed with fire and even brought her own fire gloves to work on the campfire. Matt nicknamed her "Mitts" because of the gloves. He and Mitts kept the fire burning all night for us.



Matt found a stick and we cooked our hotdogs (Hebrew National... best dogs ever!) over the fire. Everyone else used the grill. After the first round of dogs on the fire, we used the grill, too. It was hot (for Matt) standing over the fire! Everyone had brought so much food and we snacked lots and drank the rest of our beer/vodka drinks. We even made s'mores. I forgot how much I love those things!

Being in the "loud area" on Friday night was much louder than it was on Saturday night. I guess everyone was passed out from the all-day drinking and floating. I think our group was the loudest on Saturday night, which isn't really saying much because we weren't really that loud.

We sat around the fire chatting, listening to music, etc. Because it had rained earlier, it was actually very comfortable... almost chilly. Much nicer than Friday night.


A lot of people turned in early. Matt and I were part of the final four left up. Mainly because I think he was enjoying watching the fire. He told me he wanted to stay up until it went out. I vetoed that... that thing was not going out until morning. It was a good fire!

Sleeping on Saturday night was so much better. We woke up in the early hours of the morning and were freezing cold. We had been sleeping on top of the sleeping bag on Friday night. Matt was using our second sleeping bag as a pillow because only one pillow made the cut into the suitcases. But, Sat night, we had to get inside the sleeping bags and share the one pillow we had... it was that cold.

On Sunday morning, we packed the car up and took the tent down.


We went with Jerry & JJ to grab some brunch at the Huddle House (same as a Waffle House). We were starving.

Matt & I drove back to the StL airport and dropped off the rental car. We were able to get on an earlier flight going back to Chicago, which was super because the flights were all delayed. We got home a few hours earlier than we would have originally. We were both so worn out after the trip... we slept like rocks Sunday night!

Matt & I had a ton of fun and are hoping to do another trip like this again next year! Thanks to Crystal and Tara for organizing everything!

For more pics, click here.

My friend Crystal also has a write-up of the trip on her blog.

Stocking up at Target

Last night, I went to the South Loop Target to pick up the essentials for this weekend. Matt and I are going on a float/camping trip in Missouri. My friend Crystal and her sister Tara get a group together every year... this is the first year I have tagged along. We are going to the Huzzah Valley Resort.

I don't have the best prior experiences with floating down a river or camping...

The last time I went camping was with Erin for the 3-day walk and that went pretty awful... HUGE thunderstorm! We had to take cover in the middle of the night in a nearby gym, we got no sleep, some people's tents were flooded or blew into the lake... awesome times. It's kind of a family curse, because every time my family went camping when we were little (which was not that often), it would POUR and we wound up sleeping in the car or in my grandparents' camper.

The last time I was in a canoe floating down a river was in high school for a class trip. I was with my friend JJ (who is also coming on this trip with her husband Jerry) and we started floating faster and towards the bank and right for a low hanging tree. As I remember it... at the time, my first reaction was to jump out of the canoe into the river, which I did. Her initial reaction was to duck, which she did. Much better idea. She ended up dry a few feet down the river and I ended up soaked. Awesome. I think that was the first and last time my HS ever went canoeing as a class trip... some girl actually almost drowned (got caught under the canoe).

Anyway, with that said, I'm looking to improve my record this weekend. : )

I'm sure I've just jinxed myself now.