Men vs. Wild

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:.The Flossy Flossy.:

Ryan, Kurtis, Steffen, Jeff and I packed up and headed down the road to go camping at the luxurious Blue River. Kurtis, Steffen and I rode in one vehicle, and we were going to meet the others down there. Kurtis had the entire thing mapped out on his iPhone, and were following along nicely. As George Castanza would have put it, “We were making great time!” But if you have ever been on one of our trips, you would know that nothing runs smoothly. Once we reached our exit, we noticed a giant orange sign had been placed over the front of it, reading, “CLOSED.” Being quick on his toes, Kurtis responded, “Maybe not?” Maybe not indeed, we took the exit anyways.

Once we arrived at the end of the on ramp, we were met with another informative tidbit, “ROAD CLOSED TO THROUGH TRAFFIC. BRIDGE OUT AHEAD.” In the spirit of Kurtis’ slogan, “Maybe not,” we drove on anyways. I wanted to floor it, and ramp the gap, but my friends didn’t want to. We finally met a dead end where the bridge actually was out, and there was a small detour sign. Sitting right above that detour sign was a pink piece of construction paper with the word “Glamorous,” written on it and an arrow pointing in the direction of the detour. We figured, who can’t trust a Glamorous sign?

Well after a couple more Glamorous signs, we were around the non-bridge and back onto the highway. It wasn’t after too long after that we reached Blue River, only to find that the water bridge to our side of the river was a raging rapid. Instead of settling for another campsite, we threw all of our gear onto our shoulders and made the mile hike to the campsite. After a couple of trips to and from, Ryan showed up and decided he was bad ass enough to drive across the bridge. Once the campsite was all set up, we went down to meet Jeff at the bridge, who just happened to already be standing there.

That was about it for the evening, until we all go into the tent for the night. Out of nowhere, we started singing a medley of show tunes and other classics, such as: Summer Loving from Grease, Dirty Pop from N’Sync, and A Whole New World from Aladdin. Summer Loving was easily the crowd favorite. We were all dancing around the tent and getting into it, classic. Another highlight of the tent action was every now and then, Jeff would yell out, “Steam Roll!” He would then roll from one side of the tent to the other, haha, it was hilarious. Then he mixed it up on us and asked, “What rhymes with ‘Bean Bowl’?” For some reason, none of us saw the obvious answer, until he revealed it as he rolled on us, “Steam Roll!”

:.Saturday: Day 1…Kind of.:

Saturday was an action packed day. We woke up early and headed up stream. The horseflies were all over us, and we ran into a spider web about every 7 or 8 feet. Once we got far enough up stream, we decided to float back. This proved to be both dumb and difficult, as the water was rarely deep enough for us to “float.” Usually we were floating with our legs up so that way we could avoid having our knees and hips smashed to bits. Sometimes, though, a rock would spin you sideways and the current would take you away too quickly to turn back around and you would pinball your ass, for a good 10 feet, off jagged rocks. For lunch we had turkey on bread and ice cold beer, perfect on a hot day! We wrapped up lunch with a classic game of grenades. The concept of grenades is simple, you throw rocks at each other…fun stuff.

We were disappointed to find out that the “holes” we normally go spelunking in were completely full of logs, sand, WWII propaganda, and twigs. This meant we could do our death defying tricks that we are infamous for (at least among the 5 of us). Since this kind of threw a wrench in our plans, we had to come with a new agenda. Since we had already swam for a bazillion hours, and were still nursing our rock wounds, that was out. This only left drinking! So we started throwing a couple back and decided that we better replenish our supply before we were intoxicated. So we hopped in Ryan’s truck and headed to Scotty’s.

On our way out of the camp grounds, we passed 4 cop cars: 2 highway patrol, 2 unmarked. Immediately we knew something was going down since you would rarely see a cop out in those parts, better yet 4. On our way back, turns out we were right. They had set up a roadblock to check for drunk drivers, underage drinkers, and the most sought after outlaws, people camping with out a hunting or fishing license. Lucky for us, Steffen was driving (he hadn’t had a sip), and we were all at least 21. Unfortunately, Kurtis and I are not hunters or fishers, so we didn’t have a license. Kurtis and I both have Ninja licenses, but those may have got us into even more trouble at that point. If I show anyone my ninja license, I have to kill them, which made this a tension filled situation. The Game Warden let Kurt and I off with warnings, and told us to lay low and drink our beer. So we did just that.

One more note on the evening. While we were sitting around our non-existent campfire, I felt something crawl on my leg. I brushed it off, but I was a little nervous because it felt like a large creature. Within seconds it came right back over onto my leg, and I lost it. I jumped up like I was on fire and was yelling for a flashlight. The culprit quickly identified himself as one Mr. Stick Bug. I thought he was pretty creepy, but Ryan is a beast master and just picked him right up. Look at how big this guy was:

:.A Farewell to Arms.:

All in all, the trip was a success and went somewhat better than the last time we were there. We couldn’t swim in the holes, but the horseflies weren’t nearly as treacherous and we had adequate camping supplies. It was great getting together with all the guys once more before school.

You can see all of the pictures from this trip right here:

Blue River

LOTD: Essential Camping Gear
QOTD: “By all means marry. If you get a good wife, you’ll be happy. If you get a bad one, you’ll become a philosopher and that is a good thing for any man.” -Socrates

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