Float Trip

Yesterday was our "B" shift float trip down the Illinois River and we had a blast!!! We all met at Harber High at 8 yesterday morning, but didn't actually get on the road until 8:45. After getting lost and making a wrong turn we finally made it to the campsite around 10:15! After then waiting for about 25-30 minutes for them to get our rafts ready we finally made it into the river. Crystal, Allie, Hank, and myself all rode in a raft together and there were 12 other guys that divided up into 3 other rafts. We were the first ones in, but it took us a bit to get a rhythm worked out with the paddles and actually float in a semi-straight line! We finally got though...about the time the others caught up to us and started splashing us so bad we couldn't paddle because we were laughing so hard! It was pretty much like that the first half. The guys were pretty much ruthless to each other and kept knocking everyone off. Then, of course, the girls couldn't stay dry. No way. We were thrown in so many times it's not even funny!!

We stopped for lunch around 1 and they had brought hot dogs and chips so the men gathered some wood and they built a fire. Lunch was yummy and after we had all been dunked a sufficient amount of times we loaded back up and set off. We floated for a while and then ended up tying all of the rafts together and just lazily floated the last half of the trip. Some of the guys spent more time floating on their life vests instead of actually in the rafts!

Sadly enough, this is the only picture I have of the whole day! I was not even about to take my camera out in the water even though several different ones had dry bags. I wasn't taking a chance! Hank was brave and took his and we took quite a few pictures so I'll have to get them from him sometime! The whole thing is 12 miles long, but we tuckered out and headed back at the half way point. We started a little after 11 and stopped at about 5:45 and we only went 6 miles! It was a lot of fun though and I'm hoping that Gene and I can take the boys sometime this summer. We own a canoe so we may just float out here by the lake some!!

I've got some more pictures to share from this week, but right now I'm going to finish cleaning up the kitchen from our yummy steak dinner!!! Hope everyone had a good week!