It Got More Complex...

We made it to the rafting rendezvous on time Sunday morning...but Bode was nowhere to be found...the time was ticking away, and we had not heard from him. We went to the final staging area to get our gear, such as life jackets, paddles, and helmets...no Bode. The crowd of people who were going on the trip continued to grow, but no Bode. Sunscreen was being rubbed into skin all around...no Bode.

Finally, we heard the trip leader refer to "some guy coming in on a motorcycle," and we knew that our friend had checked in and was going to make it, even if a little on the tardy side. I have taken to teasing Adam in slightly profane terms about his "abandonment" of the survivors in Napaskiak in favor of a job that actually employs his training directly. He is teaching agricultural ed and shop, which is what he is best qualified to do. Those opportunities were not so available in our school, with the exception of a wood shop class that appears to be a thing of the past now. Anyway, in keeping with my standard greeting of him as "You S.O.B," I extended a single finger salute to him when he finally ambled towards us. With my left hand. It has been suggested that I may be overly fond of the gesture, but I feel that I mostly reserve it as a deterrent to photographs that I do not wish to have taken.

All was well, and we loaded onto the bus that would take us to our put-in site on the river. As we rode, Mr. B explained that his motorcycle had suddenly developed a clunk in the front wheel which hindered his progress for the last 45 minutes of his ride into Oak Hill, where the rafting company headquarters are located. He thought that it might have something to do with his speedometer cable, but it would require disassembling the front wheel to find out for sure. That would come later. We had rapids to run first.

The trip started a little farther down the river than it has in the past. The trips that I have taken in the past have tended to start in the metropolis of Thurmond, WV, population 5 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thurmond,_West_Virginia). This entailed a fair amount of long paddles down flat pools of water, with a couple of preliminary rapids thrown in along the way for practice. The new route puts in at Cunard, where there is a very nicely prepared site, including a boat slide down to the river. This, in turn, positions the boaters just above Upper and Lower Railroad rapids, two of the first more difficult rapids on the Lower New.

We ran the top, and decided to go play around in Lower Railroad for a while. This involved paddling back upstream into the hole at the bottom of the rapids. It is a good surfing site for kayakers. We settled mostly for sticking the nose of the boat into the mess, and flying around afterwards. On the second or third of these, I lost my thirty-year record of successfully staying in the boat. I could see my companions receding as I fell overboard. I quickly found myself under the boat...(stay tuned for Part II)...