{"id":1435,"date":"2013-04-01T11:30:22","date_gmt":"2013-04-01T16:30:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pkenagy.com\/blog\/?p=1435"},"modified":"2013-04-01T11:30:22","modified_gmt":"2013-04-01T16:30:22","slug":"fine-dors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pkenagy.com\/blog\/fine-dors\/","title":{"rendered":"Fine DOR’s"},"content":{"rendered":"

Got another Float Trip in the books. \u00a0And, as sheer luck and the river\u00a0deities\u00a0would have it, a fine float at that. \u00a0Our annual adventure began Wednesday after work, as Munkirs and I departed on the arduous five-hour journey to Pettit’s Campground<\/a>. \u00a0We made it to camp around 10:00 that night and found several in our group already set up and enjoying the decent weather. \u00a0(The phrase “our group” loosely referring to those in the mid-to-late-forties age group. \u00a0This is as opposed to the “Old Men” group who, remarkably, are even older than us, the “Young Guys” who aren’t even really that young any more, and the “Actives,” who are currently enrolled at UCM.) \u00a0We got ourselves oriented to the great outdoors for a few hours, then turned in for a restless night of slumber on the cold hard ground. \u00a0(Actually Todd had sprung for a cabin, and Munkirs and I gladly took him up on his offer of warm, dry shelter.)<\/p>\n

Thursday we got up and prepared for our first DOR of the weekend. \u00a0(That’s the well-known acronym for “Day On River.”) \u00a0The skies looked somewhat threatening, and the online forecast was even more foreboding, but we’re a pretty hard-core group. \u00a0Several other adjectives have been used in reference to our group, but let’s stick with “hard-core” for the purposes of this writing. \u00a0We launched around 11:00, destination Dawt Mill<\/a>. \u00a0As is the case more often than not, as soon as we hit the river the clouds parted and we enjoyed a grand day on the water. \u00a0The term “grand” is, of course, a very relative word here. \u00a0There will undoubtedly be nicer days to float this year, but if you consider both our expectations and those of the weather experts, grand is not too far-fetched at all. \u00a0Shorts were definitely in order, with light jackets. \u00a0Matter of fact, in a quite rookie moment, I burned myself to a rather embarrassing case of\u00a0raccoon-eyes; \u00a0I\u00a0definitely\u00a0underestimated the UV-factor for the afternoon. \u00a0Our small three-canoe barge made it effortlessly and safely down the river, arriving at Dawt around 3:00. \u00a0We had burned most of what little energy we still possess keeping Todd safe on the downriver run, so instead of turning around and paddling back up to camp we opted to wait for the bus. \u00a0Once there we stoked up the fire and enjoyed a nice dinner of ham and beans at the Zim & Chad Cantina, then sat around singing\u00a0Kumbayah and toasting\u00a0marshmallows for the rest of the evening. \u00a0Wait a minute… \u00a0Maybe we scurried back to the cabin and watched basketball on a laptop, I can’t remember. \u00a0One of those.<\/p>\n

Friday morning brought an even grimmer weather outlook. \u00a0It was quite a bit chillier, and raining intermittently. \u00a0Without too much discussion, we declared “camp day” and settled in for a day of storytelling. \u00a0(The same stories we’ve heard for the last 20+ years, but they’re still pretty darn funny stories.) \u00a0Those campers who had arrived later Thursday, meanwhile, were forced onto the river, and we took much pleasure in their impending misery. \u00a0As was the case Thursday, it wasn’t that bad a day at all. \u00a0I will profess mild regret we didn’t float, but only mild. \u00a0We had fun at camp, and there is no sense pushing your luck after a successful float the first day. \u00a0Additionally, the top of the river was closed due to some debris, leaving our only option as floating the exact same route we’d done the day before. \u00a0Enjoyable, but not optimal. \u00a0I stand by our decision. \u00a0When all the happy floaters got back to camp, we again dined at the Cantina, and then the younger guys had organized some Fraternity Trivia Games to test our historical knowledge. \u00a0No… No wait… \u00a0Actually I think we went up to the cabin and watched basketball on the laptop again. \u00a0Yep, that was it.<\/p>\n

Saturday we made the trek home, stopping by a car wash in Springfield along the way. \u00a0(The car wash was for us, not the vehicle. \u00a0The stench in the truck cab was nearly unbearable.) \u00a0We were home by noon and I promptly hit the hay, sleeping until the later hours of Sunday morning. \u00a0Having sufficiently recovered by then, we drove up north to enjoy a delicious Easter dinner with Donette’s family. \u00a0I must say, it’s rather remarkable what dishes look appealing when you haven’t seen anything resembling a vegetable in three days. \u00a0I ate way too much, then we scurried back to the southlands where I sat on the couch and moaned in bloated misery for the rest of the evening. \u00a0I closed out my weekend with a showing of “The Mooring<\/a>.” \u00a0Holy crud, there’s an hour and a half of my life I will never get back. \u00a0If you were just getting in your car to run up to the nearest Red Box and rent that title… \u00a0Don’t. \u00a0Twelve hours later, I still have no idea what the point of that film was, if there even was one. \u00a0(I’ll probably watch it again this evening in case I missed some critical moment in the plot development.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Got another Float Trip in the books. \u00a0And, as sheer luck and the river\u00a0deities\u00a0would have it, a fine float at that. \u00a0Our annual adventure began Wednesday after work, as Munkirs and I departed on the arduous five-hour journey to Pettit’s Campground. \u00a0We made it to camp around 10:00 that night and found several in our […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1435","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pkenagy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1435","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pkenagy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pkenagy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pkenagy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pkenagy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1435"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.pkenagy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1435\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1436,"href":"https:\/\/www.pkenagy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1435\/revisions\/1436"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pkenagy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pkenagy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pkenagy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}