Float Trip
Don't miss my foregoing General Update post. Originally I was going to write about the float trip there as well, but the float trip section became comparable in size to the rest of the already lengthy post, so I decided to complete it as this separate post.
Thus: last weekend I went with a bunch of friends from school out to a very rural part of Missouri, a couple hours southwest of here (near Steelville), to go on a float trip and then camp out overnight. You may have seen pictures from it on Thefacebook. A float trip, if you're not acquainted with the term, is just a rafting trip on a slow, smooth waterway. This was the first time I'd been anywhere in the region beyond metropolitan St. Louis, so I was excited about it just because of that, for one. Because the location is pretty much in the northern part of the Ozarks, the terrain is rolling, wooded hills that actually reminded me a lot of New England, except that the dominant hardwoods are different - oak (heavily) and sycamore, it seemed, rather than beech, maple, ash, and oak. The weather cooperated really well - during the float, it was warm, mostly sunny and gradually got cloudier; then, just after we landed, it started sprinkling and there was some thunder. As we waited on the bus to ride back to the campground, there was a short period of heavy rain, but that passed by, and it cleared up so that we had a dry, beautifully starry, fairly chilly night for camping.
As a cultural investigation of the camping/floating classes of the southern Midwest, the trip was a tour de force. Both the rafts on the river (at least upstream, where it was narrower) and the sites at the campground were cheek-by-jowl. The rafting groups varied from families with kids to groups of teenagers to twentysomethings like us, up through forty-to-fifty-year-olds with just as much partying capacity as the younger clientele. Most of those who were old enough to drink (and some younger than that, at least until the rangers hidden in the woods apprehended them) had alcohol with them. We certainly did; it's considered an essential part of the floating experience. (I nursed a cup of sangria on the river and refrained from the cheap beer.) As for our fellow floaters, there was the kayaking kid who kept circling around us and spraying us with a water gun; there were the Old-Time Hippies who got busted for pot; there was the Skanky Mom who (I didn't see this, luckily) flashed onlookers while on a rope swing tree; there was the Dedicated Dad who cheerily yelled at (presumably) his children, "That's why I left your mother, cuz I couldn't stand you kids!" just after we passed by; there was the succession of riverbank beach parties with music invariably blaring. It was nice when the river widened out somewhat, after we went by incoming tributaries, and the density of boats decreased quite a bit so that we could enjoy more serene surroundings for a while - except, of course, when we were racing one another, pushing each other out of the rafts, getting snagged by brush, and so on. Once the bridge that indicated the end of the run hove into view downstream, surprisingly early, we pulled ashore to extend the float for just a bit. Here we emptied one of the rafts of its contents and flipped it over to make an excellent water slide (we'd seen this done upstream), which was patronized by a couple of other groups as well, including one group with a dog. The dog didn't quite understand the goal of the water slide.
Unlike the bus ride on the way over, which had comprised only our group (of 16), the ride back to the campground also included a whole pack of - "cougars" is not really right, yet they were basically the same as Jeff Rowland's boat cougars, who proceeded, perhaps every last one of them, to smoke, out the window only when asked and then demanded by us (no one in our group smokes). The bus driver was quite congenial with the float cougars; of a similar age and disposition, he may have detected potential for conquest among their ranks.
The camping was fun despite the proximity of the adjacent campsites. We had a tasty fajita dinner, where I impressed by doing some fire-toasted fajita and quesadilla cooking, and we made s'mores afterward. As dusk fell and those who weren't staying overnight departed, the stars came out in splendor, as did unnervingly close-range fireworks, while the death metal that had been chugging from the campsite right next to us stayed constant. (At some points there had been death metal from the other side of us as well, but it was less persistent; there was also jam-band music adjacent to us on that side, but it stopped before it was really late.) The death metal continued as we went to bed between 10 and 11; I was so tuckered, and so content to have a tent to myself (this was not even up to me initially) that it didn't really bother me much, but it did keep me awake. So did the relationship drama being quietly discussed, later on, by two Southern-accented guys seemingly right outside my tent, as did the loud and shouty consequences of one of those guys trying and failing to make up with the girl who was the subject of the drama, accompanied by the same guy turning the death metal back on (this at, apparently, about 4AM, well after the curfew for the loud campground, which is where we were - next time we'll be in the quiet campground) several times while others yelled at him to shut it off.
After that I slept fine, just on the verge of being a little too chilly (we had been able to see our breath in the evening, though it wasn't really that cold - I think it was more that the dewpoint was fairly high) until about 8AM, when everyone else arose. Not having had a pillow or substitute, I must have strained some of my neck muscles a bit; luckily they're back to normal as of today. After a pleasant toasted bagel breakfast, we packed up and were on the road early enough (all of us smelling as though we had been barbecued) to get back to school before noon, whence we went our separate ways. All in all a highly entertaining time. I'm very much looking forward to the next float trip, whenever that may come about.
Thus: last weekend I went with a bunch of friends from school out to a very rural part of Missouri, a couple hours southwest of here (near Steelville), to go on a float trip and then camp out overnight. You may have seen pictures from it on Thefacebook. A float trip, if you're not acquainted with the term, is just a rafting trip on a slow, smooth waterway. This was the first time I'd been anywhere in the region beyond metropolitan St. Louis, so I was excited about it just because of that, for one. Because the location is pretty much in the northern part of the Ozarks, the terrain is rolling, wooded hills that actually reminded me a lot of New England, except that the dominant hardwoods are different - oak (heavily) and sycamore, it seemed, rather than beech, maple, ash, and oak. The weather cooperated really well - during the float, it was warm, mostly sunny and gradually got cloudier; then, just after we landed, it started sprinkling and there was some thunder. As we waited on the bus to ride back to the campground, there was a short period of heavy rain, but that passed by, and it cleared up so that we had a dry, beautifully starry, fairly chilly night for camping.
As a cultural investigation of the camping/floating classes of the southern Midwest, the trip was a tour de force. Both the rafts on the river (at least upstream, where it was narrower) and the sites at the campground were cheek-by-jowl. The rafting groups varied from families with kids to groups of teenagers to twentysomethings like us, up through forty-to-fifty-year-olds with just as much partying capacity as the younger clientele. Most of those who were old enough to drink (and some younger than that, at least until the rangers hidden in the woods apprehended them) had alcohol with them. We certainly did; it's considered an essential part of the floating experience. (I nursed a cup of sangria on the river and refrained from the cheap beer.) As for our fellow floaters, there was the kayaking kid who kept circling around us and spraying us with a water gun; there were the Old-Time Hippies who got busted for pot; there was the Skanky Mom who (I didn't see this, luckily) flashed onlookers while on a rope swing tree; there was the Dedicated Dad who cheerily yelled at (presumably) his children, "That's why I left your mother, cuz I couldn't stand you kids!" just after we passed by; there was the succession of riverbank beach parties with music invariably blaring. It was nice when the river widened out somewhat, after we went by incoming tributaries, and the density of boats decreased quite a bit so that we could enjoy more serene surroundings for a while - except, of course, when we were racing one another, pushing each other out of the rafts, getting snagged by brush, and so on. Once the bridge that indicated the end of the run hove into view downstream, surprisingly early, we pulled ashore to extend the float for just a bit. Here we emptied one of the rafts of its contents and flipped it over to make an excellent water slide (we'd seen this done upstream), which was patronized by a couple of other groups as well, including one group with a dog. The dog didn't quite understand the goal of the water slide.
Unlike the bus ride on the way over, which had comprised only our group (of 16), the ride back to the campground also included a whole pack of - "cougars" is not really right, yet they were basically the same as Jeff Rowland's boat cougars, who proceeded, perhaps every last one of them, to smoke, out the window only when asked and then demanded by us (no one in our group smokes). The bus driver was quite congenial with the float cougars; of a similar age and disposition, he may have detected potential for conquest among their ranks.
The camping was fun despite the proximity of the adjacent campsites. We had a tasty fajita dinner, where I impressed by doing some fire-toasted fajita and quesadilla cooking, and we made s'mores afterward. As dusk fell and those who weren't staying overnight departed, the stars came out in splendor, as did unnervingly close-range fireworks, while the death metal that had been chugging from the campsite right next to us stayed constant. (At some points there had been death metal from the other side of us as well, but it was less persistent; there was also jam-band music adjacent to us on that side, but it stopped before it was really late.) The death metal continued as we went to bed between 10 and 11; I was so tuckered, and so content to have a tent to myself (this was not even up to me initially) that it didn't really bother me much, but it did keep me awake. So did the relationship drama being quietly discussed, later on, by two Southern-accented guys seemingly right outside my tent, as did the loud and shouty consequences of one of those guys trying and failing to make up with the girl who was the subject of the drama, accompanied by the same guy turning the death metal back on (this at, apparently, about 4AM, well after the curfew for the loud campground, which is where we were - next time we'll be in the quiet campground) several times while others yelled at him to shut it off.
After that I slept fine, just on the verge of being a little too chilly (we had been able to see our breath in the evening, though it wasn't really that cold - I think it was more that the dewpoint was fairly high) until about 8AM, when everyone else arose. Not having had a pillow or substitute, I must have strained some of my neck muscles a bit; luckily they're back to normal as of today. After a pleasant toasted bagel breakfast, we packed up and were on the road early enough (all of us smelling as though we had been barbecued) to get back to school before noon, whence we went our separate ways. All in all a highly entertaining time. I'm very much looking forward to the next float trip, whenever that may come about.