the first few hours in the morning were (and always are) spent on actual team-building or relevant work discussion. we then have a little lunch and then start playing. i decided early on to team up with RML and brian from my team. RML is effing crazy and brian is like 23 and one of those extreme sporting types so he's effing crazy, too. for some reason, i didn't really take this into account. i said to myself, 'i will probably be good to go in their canoe'. i'll tell you the story of how it went. try to guess where this is going to end up.
the place was called 'camp hi-canoe' and it really couldn't have been any further from my house. strike 1. once we all signed our lives away and suited up with life-vests and paddles, they loaded us onto a dark green school bus that much resembled one that hauls prison inmates around. strike 2. they shuttled us to the start of our route so we could easily board the canoes and get some tips. it took 15 minutes. strike 3. RML, brian, and i loaded into our boat and the journey began.
so we set sail down the cuyahoga river - except without sails and the c river is pretty much a really skinny lake that just happens to wind around for miles with zero to no current. there we are, paddling and ruddering down the "river". RML was "stern". brian was "bow". i was in the middle. port and starboard don't apply to my story because there's no right and left in a tiny, aluminum ship. anyway, we were paddling and ruddering and it was kind of peaceful. a few of the other boaters pulled away right from the gates because they were outdoors-y and it appeared that canoeing was their life. i say this because they brought homemade paddles and life vests. you make the call. my boat was not full of lifers because it was swaying right and left and running into the sides of the river. RML is a little retarded. she was ruddering so damn much and always in the wrong direction. obviously brian started yelling at her because we really didn't have anything else to do. we all agreed that we did not need any more rudder.
hey guess what. RML kept ruddering. guess what else. brian kept yelling. obviously i couldn't not be yelling at that point so i started yelling, too. i shouted - "rudder!" and "i gotta have more left!". this was all still in the first few hundred yards of the trip and we hadn't even tasted a drop of an adult beverage.
we started to get the hang of the paddles. here's my expert canoeing tip: paddle on the side you don't want to be on. if you're heading towards a tree on the left, paddle on that side. this sounded like a workable plan except for the part where brian is like hulk and RML is like not. i was in the middle trying to stay in sync with brian but his paddle strength was too powerful and we were all over the "river" ramming into everyone and everything. everyone was passing us with their beer and super soakers and we were all just yelling aimlessly at each other.
we actually started making a little progress and were feeling better about this trip until brian started getting playful and tipping the canoe from side to side. our boss, cig lips, started egging him on from another canoe (that he had strapped to a second canoe so they wouldn't tip. he's real tricky this guy. he also finished a full hour after us due to the case he was able to house in the 3-hour tour.)
i can't really tell you why, but brian so wanted to get in that murky, brown water, which ended up being unusually warm and i know this because brian accidentally capsized us around this time. hey know what? canoes are pretty effing heavy when they're on dry land so try to imagine how heavy they are when you're neck deep in the brown water and trying to flip it back over so you can get your ankles out of the disgusting-ness river bed that felt like poo. i feel like taking a shower every time i re-live the river bed. it was 4ft of brown water and you couldn't see the bottom. needless to say, i was livid the moment i hit the water. i was expecting to get wet but i was never going to be submerged in the brown goo. it literally took us 10min to get the canoe in place and another 10 for me and RML to climb back into it. a few canoes were still passing us but they were the end of the line and laughing at us. we thought we were the last official morons just sitting there dead in the water, but that's when our boss' boss along with wendy and kreitzer slowly paddled up. brian was still in the water because he wanted to capsize them as well. the higher level bosses are not as dumb as we like to think because right away they started asking where brian was. guess where he was - he was behind them in position to tip their drunk asses into the mushy goodness. fantastic. now they were out of the boat and obviously comin for RML and me. we screamed for dear life. we begged for mercy. there was no way we were going back into the brown water we worked so hard to get out of...but down we went.
so we were stuck in the mushy, brown sludge yet again and this was still the first mile of the course. i'm talkin like, 30min into it. i might now like to take the time to mention the length of the trip. 6 more to go friends. 7 MILES OF CANOEING AHEAD. we didn't know this when we started. i wouldn't have canoed had i known this prior. we were soaked and muddy and we had zero beer. i decided that we needed to regroup so we docked at a calm little bank and dumped all the excess water out of the canoe because while we enjoyed sitting in it, we didn't.
finally we climbed back in and started our journey once again. i made brian switch places with me because his strength was better distributed in the center. i also started calling the paddle which actually helped quite a bit. and after a while, we all knew how to switch sides based on which direction we were headed.
7 grueling miles later, we see the most glorious shitty little canoe dock we've ever seen in our entire lives. we could barely walk when our feet hit the ground. 7 miles is insanity. we were expecting a very cute canoe ride, 2-3 miles tops. i had to throw away my favorite pink underpants along with the rest of what i was wearing. it was sad. behold, my aftermath:
and you just had to review my crack..."butt" this is the internet and i think it's high time i distribute the porn and finally start doing my part.
anywho, cute little canoe rides don't end this way. this bruise gets darker and uglier with each passing day and then i discover a few new ones. i don't even know how i got them - but they hurt. my butt hurts. my arms hurt. it hurts to breathe. so for the sake of everyone, everywhere, my canoeing will be now be limited to zero trips a year going forward.
