I am well rested and awake for the first time in weeks.
Saturday morning around 7:00am Courtney, Keaton, Charles, JoLynn and I left my place for Tahlequah, Oklahoma for a weekend of floating and camping. We were supposed to have a lot more people but they were all lame and bailed. And by they, of course, I mean you.
Anyway, it turned out to be a good group. We made our way south and started off with some pizza at Sam & Ella’s (get it? GET IT?), hit Walmart for some last millisecond supplies and then found our camp site at War Eagle on the river. The camping area was kind of crowded, it was around 2:15pm by time we got there, but we found a really nice spot with a picnic table and some trees for shade. The Men quickly and efficiently set up camp while the ladies talked about bunnies and squirrels or something. Who knows what the hell they were doing. Not helping, I know that.
We had three tents. Keaton’s, Charles’ and mine. Keaton’s was this monster behemoth thing that sleeps 60, has full gas and water services, hot tub, sauna and heated pool in the basement. Charles’ was smaller but with many of the same amenities. Mine was $25 and it came from Walmart, so no hot tub. It’s blue though, so that’s cool.
Time for floating to happen so we headed up to the front and met up with Emily who had just gotten off work. We loaded up the short bus with another group and hit the road.
I’ve never been on an “organized” float trip before. I used to float all the time with my parents and friends back in New Jersey (or PA, or DE) and we would just take truck inner tubes, fill them up and hop in the river. So, I was a little concerned about this whole raft thing sucking. I thought it would be cramped and lame. Not so! We got a good size raft and it fit our group of 6 and our monster cooler of Bud Light just fine. It was a little roomier than it could have been probably since I spent about 99% of the float in the river. Me like swimmy.
The float itself was pretty uneventful, but very fun and very relaxing. Lots of drunk people. Lots of party people. Lots of redneck people. We had to carry our raft a few times, and I provided engine services for much of the trip
Lake just walked past and I think we’re wearing the same shirt today. Lame.
So anyway, the float was great. JoLynn, Emily and I got pretty lit up and by the end it was all rather quiet. The last maybe mile or so I stuck a life jacket under my ass and just let the raft pull me in the water. I think I even slept a little. Very peaceful. And a baby water moccasin tried to swallow our good ship.
We rolled back in to camp and played a little Frisbee while things got sorted out. Eventually it was time to head to town for some dinner, a beer run and to pick up Megan who was going to camp with us. Oklahoma has this weird thing where they can’t sell cold beer with 5% alcohol, only 3.2% and it has to be skunked or something. I don’t know. There’s all these weird rules. Anyway, the best we could do was warm 5% “Lost Lake” beer which was pretty awful but not much more awful than the Bud Light I had been drinking all day. Charles got 5 (5!) bottles of Boones and Keaton got a little bottle of The Green Devil. Dinner was at Charlie’s Chicken and was super yum. They had these chicken chunks things which were basically massive chicken tenders and very good.
Camping was just like camping, except with more humidity. Keaton and I got a decent little fire going and there was S’mores and drinking and carousing. Boones was passed around. When we finally hit the sack the heat wasn’t bad at all, but the humidity was awful. I woke up a few times in the night and the entire inside of my tent was filled with drops of condensation. If I bumped the walls it all came raining down. Apparently Keaton’s tent is designed to make sure that doesn’t happen and he said it worked, so that’s something to think about before the next time I camp in 100% humidity.
And that was that. We drove back to civilization, tired and worn out but happy. I spent the rest of Sunday collecting my dog, cleaning, doing laundry, shopping for the week and sleeping. I resolved to go back to my real diet starting today and I started last night with a turkey sammich dinner. I laid down at like 6:30pm last night cause my laundry was mostly done and I was bored and I slept till 7am this morning which is the reason for the first line of this post.
This week, and the next few look pretty boring according to the calendar. Boring might be just the thing though. The last month has been pretty wild and maybe it’s time to calm down a little. I’m going to diet, go to the gym, lose weight and start going back to the tanning salon. Next time I go camping, which should be soon, I intend to absorb and not reflect.
Out.