Riverboat Zombies: Yanks in the Wire

Adventure name: Riverboat Zombies: Yanks in the Wire

Length of Adventure: 1 day

Distance from November Base: 78.3 mi – about 1 hour 50 mins

Dawn came early as I had stayed up until midnight playing Super MonkeyBall with half toasted friends. I had also been called out at 2:40a.m. to fill a prescription for the hospital when I was supposed to be off of call. That put me back in bed around 4 a.m. too nervous about waking up at 6 a.m. to think properly or fall back asleep.

So it had been agreed to meet up in town at 7:45a.m. in order that we might be on the road by 8 a.m.

That never happens.

We did, however, hit the open road by 8:30 a.m. and make just one lengthy stop at Big Box Mart.

But I digress.

The whole reason this trip was planned was for my Yankee friend, Nam, to be able to experience the great outdoors Arkansas style. He had driven into town two days earlier to spend a few days visiting on his journey across America. He was well into day 18 when he hit Jonesboro and the oppressive heat. We had already taken him shooting the day before as he had never held a firearm. His journey to ‘American Tough Guy’ status was well on it’s way, hoping to edge closer by his experience on this canoe trip. We were prepared to hone his survival instincts.

So as Jennifer was pregnant and out of town anyways, we opted for the ‘beat toughness into you’ approach by strapping ourselves and some malt beverages into a piece of aluminum and hurling ourselves over rocks.

We headed North and West into the foothills of the Ozark mountains by 9:00 a.m. or so and didn’t stop until we arrived at Many Islands base camp. Here we applied ‘spray-on’ suntan lotion and rented our aluminum coffins. Just in time too, as we barely had time to lock all of our valuables in the truck and load the school bus taking us up river where we would put in.

Our group allowed everyone else to hit the water leaving our group to float down the river in relative solitude. Even though the temperature gauge was topping out at 106 degrees today, we knew the bone chilling water never faltered from 54 degrees F.

Most of us even looked forward to the occasional ‘fall’ into the river.

The first two hours on the river was actually quite tame, almost boring.

It was deathly quiet and the ‘rapids’ during the low water season don’t make you worry a whole heck of a lot. We stopped for dinner on a sandbank which allowed us to enjoy the cold water and relax our arms from the incessant paddling.

A couple of young fellows passed by and insisted on hurling crude language at the women in our group. A threat from us and the waving of a fish gutting knife later, they were on their way…on their way to a date with Karma.

After lunch, we were back on the river thinking we were experts, invulnerable to the effects of gravity on a canoe.

It all went downhill from there…literally.

We successfully navigated a few more small to medium rapids, the instant burst of speed that you get from flying over the faster rapids propelled Nam and I into the wall on a tight turn. The impact forced us sideways and upended our canoe making us the first canoe casualty of the day and ending my boredom.

to be continued...