Remember those little bitty "rapids" I wrote about yesterday? The ones that scared me to death? Yeah, I would have KILLED for some of those today. The trip today was nothing but paddle, paddle, paddle, paddle, paddle, paddle, ad nauseum. Look at the brown water and lots of trees, go around a curve, look at more brown water and some more trees. Paddle, paddle, paddle. For 15 miles. For approximately 7 hours.
We had to portage around a huge dam this morning. (Pictures forthcoming.) The cue sheet mentioned that if you failed to follow directions and head to river left, you might go over the dam, which would result in almost certain death. Lovely. I had an irrational (maybe?) fear that I wouldn't have time to make my way to river left and the current would suck me over the dam. It wasn't that close a call. There was plenty of time to get over, and there were a gazillion warnings about approaching the dam.
The portage process was a tedious one. The spot to get out of our boats was very small, so we had to enter it one at a time. Did I mention there are 300 people on this trip? Then we had to drag our boats to a trailer, where they were loaded to be hauled around the dam. We had to take anything off the boat we didn't want hauled on the trailer (phone, camera, GPS, water), and then we had to hike about half a mile through mucky wilderness and wait for our boats to arrive. This process will be repeated later in the week, when the organizers will portage us around two lakes, eliminating about 45 miles of flat water paddling. Thanks, guys.
I said yesterday that it was too early to make any sweeping statements, but after day two I think I can safely say that this is not for me. It's too much sameness, too little activity. Too much sitting on the bum, especially with the way my hips have been hurting. Although tomorrow is a shorter day, and Tuesday is ONLY 8 miles, the last two days are 20 and 22 miles. And after two days, I've had enough. Hubby is picking me up in the morning. And I'm not even going to apologize for quitting.
1 comment:
There is no need to apologize. If you aren't having any fun and you aren't getting paid to do this, then why torture yourself!
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