Border Straddling

This past week was the Priest Quorum high adventure. Basically, we kayaked down the Columbia most of the week (I'd say the total distance was somewhere around 60 to 70 miles), which meant that we were basically in Oregon half the time and in Washington half the time. The kayaks fit two people, so we all ended up with partners. Mine was Joseph. We tended to be near the back of the group, but that's not because we got tired quickly or anything (even on Saturday I didn't feel very sore, if at all), but because we just tended to row slower. Overall, the trip was pretty fun and yet miserable (and yet fun because of said misery).

I'm now going to write a detailed day-by-day summary for those who like reading novel-sized blog posts.

On Monday we spent most of the morning driving down to our destination. I occupied my time by playing some of those fancy LCD games that happened to be in the vehicle I was riding in. I mostly played Checkers and Solitaire (Checkers was better). We stopped for lunch at a restaurant called Burgerville. I ended forking over $9 for a cheeseburger, pop, and fries (it ain't Bargain-ville, that's for sure). The main attraction of the day was the White Salmon River, which we white-water rafted down (our outfitter was RiverDrifters.net). It was pretty fun, although nobody fell out of the raft I was in, unless you count the time when our guide tricked us into capsizing ourselves. The best part was when I was able to "ride the bull" (ie sit on the front of the raft).

We spent the night at Beacon Rock State Park. Naturally, some us decided to hike up the park's namesake before dinner. The trail was about a mile long with 800 feet of elevation gain. A few of the people decided to run up the trail, getting to the top between 11 or 15 minutes, but most of us decided just to walk up instead thus taking about 25 minutes to get to the top. The people who opted not to go hiking made dinner instead, but they were patient enough to not start eating until we came back about an hour or so later (9 PM or so).

Also, that night the ground that night was very hard and rocky. Even with my sleeping pad, it made me want to kill somebody.*

Tuesday was the day we started the actual kayaking of the trip. We spent most of the morning breaking camp and trying to figure out how to fit all of our gear into our kayaks with the troop gear as well (which included trivialities such as food, water filters, and cooking supplies). The short answer is "We did." Their was also business regarding vehicles that the adults had to sort out. Also, Brother Goff was sick, so he decided not to go kayaking (though I have a sneaking suspicion that there were weightier reasons too), but I think he was down in the area the whole week. Anyways, we didn't start the actual kayaking until after noon. It took us about an hour and a half to reach an island to stop at (that timeframe pretty much became the standard for stops on the trip). Some people felt like the place would be a good place to stop for the night, but Brother Magelsen said it was only about halfway. Later in the trip when we were close to the place we ended up camping, we were kayaking on a surprisingly shallow portion of the river. It was so shallow at points that we occasionally had to get out of the kayak to walk and push it to deeper water.

We eventually got to the island where were to camp. However, it took us a while to find a suitable campsite. On one side of the island there was an encampment of some people with a pirate flag near the beach. (Witnesses claim said pirates were nude, but I am unsure of the veracity of that statement, having not seen the campers myself.) The opposite side of the island was also all beach, but it didn't have any suitable spots either. All of the leaders doubted that there were any sizeable clearings inland. Eventually we found a place on the island that was generally flat, clear of vegetation, and far enough above the shoreline to not get flooded or anything. We set up camp as soon as we could because it was starting to rain.

That rain, when combined with the sand, was pure evil. Quite a lot of wet sand got our tents and sleeping bags, and the tents were unusually leaky (a couple unlucky souls ended up sleeping in a lake of sorts). That made most of us want to kill somebody.*

Weather-wise, Wednesday morning wasn't much better. It was still rather rainy and sandy. However, when we started kayaking, we learned the power (and sound) of MUSIC. We discovered that when we were singing together that it was easier for us to stay together (especially if the song was "I'll Make a Man Out of You"), and the time seemed to pass faster. Also, it seemed the weather seemed to clear up when we were singing church songs ("100 bottles of beer on the wall" didn't seem to have that effect).

(Note: The next paragraph is potentially gross.)

One thing I should mention now is that unlike every other kind of conceivable high adventure, bathroom facilities didn't seem to exist. Thus, my main strategy was "hold it in as long as possible." However, this strategy had it's flaws so I ended up needing to go during the first stop on Wednesday. However, the "island" we stopped at was more akin to a pile of rocks than something hospitable, so there wasn't any real privacy. I attempted to do my business on the alleged island by asking everybody to look away, but I caught some of the allegedly adult leaders taking pictures of me, so I opted to do my business at the next stop (which had far more vegetation). I'm going to kill somebody* if those pictures end up being published in any form.

The campsite that night was easily the best on the trip, but that opinion probably stems from the fact that the weather was much better than any of the other days. It also had a very private "bathroom", but that was a bit difficult to use. During the night we decided to play capture the flag, which was fun, even though the beach wasn't particularly suited for it.

Wednesday night was also the night when the adults decided to slightly scale back the length of the trip, after coming to the conclusion that they overestimated the distance most of us could go per day (and they wanted more time for us to goof around). I suspect that this form of overestimation also led us taking a dozens of more hot dogs than we were capable of eating.

The next day, Thursday, was also pretty good. By then we had all pretty much gotten used to kayaking, so I guess that's the reason I don't remember as much of it. We stopped once at the shore by some motel place, which was the closest we had been to civilization for days. We also stopped at a nice park (with a bathroom!), where we were able to meet up with Brother Goff again. He was willing to take the garbage we had accumulated by that time during the trip, and he also gave the poor souls of the flooded tent a replacement. The campsite we stayed at was also pretty nice, but it didn't have any of the nice features of the previous one (like a peninsula).

It did rain a little bit while we were there, but fortunately not during the night. While we were in the tent taking shelter from the rain, Derek (not the new guy) came up with the idea of having us do choose-your-own-adventure style thingies which he "directed." Each story was strictly a "one-player" affair, but they were creative enough that they were fun to listen to anyways. For instance, Austin had a story where he was a pirate or something fighting ninjas that happened to be from his hometown. Chris's story involved a sci-fi space battle and had the character "Blue Star Commander Hotness" (I believe that is simultaneously her name and title). Most of these stories ended with rather gruesome deaths, but in my case I got "lucky" and somehow won. I won by being stripped naked by nude pirates (cf Tuesday) even though Derek established earlier in the story that I was inexplicably naked, so thus this contradiction led to me joining the pirates (rather than being flayed). Granted, I'm not sure if that could be considered a good ending or bad ending. Anyways, these types of stories ended up being added to our repertoire of ways to spend time on the trip, thus leading to many more stories, but I still think Derek's original stories were the best.

Also, I think I'm supposed to say something that day made me want to kill someone* (to keep the pattern going), but I can't think of anything in particular that made me angry that night.

Friday ended up being our last day, rather than Saturday, mostly because we weren't going to do any kayaking that day anyways. The kayaking, again, seemed to pass rather quickly. We made a couple of stops, one of which was at the weirdest shore I had ever seen (it was made of some weird, bubbly, sandy, clay-like substance). Joseph and I did a couple of those choose-your-own-adventure stories to pass time. Also, their was much more water fighting than the previous days. I especially liked it when at the end everybody soaked Tani and Jarret (two of the primary instigators of the water fights).

After arriving at the beach the adults had to go get the rest of the vehicles from where we started, which took about two hours. During this time we emptied out the kayaks and put them aways, and then ate a bunch of stuff for lunch, such a cereal with soy milk. Said milk was so poor tasting that it made me want to kill someone.* We also played around a lot, doing things like using sticks to choreograph sword fights and such.

The ride home very much the same as the other car ride. I spent much of my time playing the Checkers and Solitaire LCD games, and we also stopped at a burger place (which was thankfully much cheaper). When I got home it was past 9 o'clock, and my parents were in their room watching TV. Apparently they were surprised that I was home. Anyways, I decided to do what was good for me and take a shower, especially since I hadn't changed my clothes since Monday. If for some reason that grosses you out, you could reinterpret that sentence as "I budgeted my clothing usage as to have mom do as little laundry as possible at the end of the week."

* You know who you are... *Ominous music*

(Alternative footnote: Not really.)