H2O, weekend of July 19, 20

This past weekend was pretty badass. I was over in Watertown to run the Black on Saturday and Sunday. Lots of good fun was had.

On Saturday, I had a bachelor party and I trashed them up pretty good, just like they wanted. We were the first boat to paddle back up into the Cruncher to surf (naturally) to show the other boats what they could expect. The river was running at about 2,000 cubic feet per second (CFS) and it was a pretty beefy surf. As soon as we paddled back into the hole, the three guys on the front right were gone. Soon after that when the boat spun, everyone on the left was gone. Me and only one guy (back right, in front of me) was left in the raft. We came pretty close to flipping the raft a few times and then we finally did go bottoms up on a big back surf. I wasn't even trying to flip the raft, it was pretty cool. We drank a bunch of beer on the tow.

After we got back to the shop, we drank more beer and myself, Erika Goodboat, Scary Larry, Brandon, Mary and the Cook Dave paddled a raft down to play at Hole Brothers. The raft surfing was kind of boring (we were in this giant 16 foot boat) but surfing on the boogy board was a real good time. At one point I pushed the Cook out of the raft and he swam way down river. I probably wouldn't have done it if I knew it wold be such an ordeal. We drank all of the beer we brought and paddled down to Vabnduzee street to Larry's truck. Erika and Alex then were going to dinner so I tagged along with them to the Texas Roadhouse. Last time I was at th Roadhouse was last year for a Guide Party. We basically tore that place apart and I'm surprised we didn't get thrown out. That time, it was really busy and we had to wait a while to sit and we were drinking at the bar (you can imagine like 15 guides squeezing around the bar and drinking heavily). I know we were upsetting some of the people around us as we were spilling beer and drinking and cursing and the like but whatever, we were there to have a good time. When we finally sat down we ended up throwing food at each other for a couple of hours and breaking basically every glass that was put in front of us. It was a good time.

This time with Erika and Alex was quite a bit more laid back. The restaurant wasn't busy and we got a table pretty quickly. The hostess said 'Someone will be right with you' and I said "thank you so much" she thought for some reason that I was being sarcastic and she was like "are you being sarcastic?" and I was like "what? no." but whatever, she was nice and we sat down. I wasn't really hungry (I really only came to drink) so I ordered the cheapest thing on the menu, a pulled pork sandwich. I was not really interested in eating and after my first beer and first shot of bourbon I was even less interested in food and more interested in the Maker's Mark and Sam Summer. I picked at my sandwich and poured drinks into my belly. It was a good time. After leaving, Al dropped me off at another rafting company down the street and I proceeded to drink quite a bit more with the General Chris Koll and those boys. I believe I even shotgunned a few PBRs. I left at about 2 to walk back to ARO. The combination lock on the door was incredibly hard to open as I couldn't see very well (both because of the drink and because it was dark). I eventually closed one eye and focused and opened it up after probably 15 minutes of struggling. All in all, it was a good night.

Nest morning the General woke me up at around 8 and we headed over to this little diner A&J's I think it was called. I usually go to Mo's but this was better and not as busy. After breakfast we headed back to the shop and got ready for the trip. The raft trip was broken up in half, about half normal people and half Syracuse University. I had a group of 10 people from the YMCA of Oswego. They were alright. At Knife's Edge I ran the meatiest part of Mary's Hole and swam half the boat, including myself. I was sure we flipped but, no, we didn't. We had a little surf at the cruncher, it was bigger than Saturday and harder to paddle up into. All in all, it was a real good weekend. I believe next Saturday will be my last trip of the year before I have to go away until November.