Juniper Run

Yesterday, I canoed down Juniper Run with the group from Overflow. Well, Peter and a new girl Amanda canoed I just sat there and tried my hardest not to make us flip over. I felt like a kid in a VERY long and exceptionally dangerous Disney World ride. It would have been in Epcot, not Magic Kingdom.

We started out doing fine. I wasn't getting that wet...just the occassional splash as Peter switched his oar from one side of the boat to the other. Then, things started getting interesting. The river was extremely high, so nearly every tree that normaly you just float on under we had to lie down flat in the boat to navigate under. There were trees jutting up that somehow we kept getting stuck in the middle of them. We were the only boat that kept getting stuck in them.

A little over half way through, we navigating a around and overtop and underneath yet another tree. So Peter trying to be the gentleman he is got out of the canoe and was trying to direct us around it from the outside. So, he did and we were on the other side and the poor guy is doing the best he can to get back into the boat and here comes Raegan and Jayson. As I was trying to form the word "Stop!!" in my mind, they T-Boned us. We swayed from one side(taking on water), so I tried to balance us the other to the other side. Well, apparantely so was Amanda, so we took on even more water. My gut reaction was to go back to the other side. That was the proverbial straw the cut the camel's back, because here we go with me in the middle, Peter half in way, and Amanda just kinda unknowingly swaying us back and forth.

We lost everything. Peter's and Amanda's sandals go floating downstream, but Jimmy caught them. My cooler, Peter's bag with his phone it, and Amanda's shirt we just kinda everywhere. I look up and there is Jayson, just laughing. Laughing so hard he could hardly breathe. Suddenly it was all that I could do. I laughed so hard I couldn't stand up straight. I'm sure this was much to Peter's chagrin,as he and Jon are trying to flip the boat back over. Then, I sorta panicked, because, at 4'11" it's hard to just flip your leg over the wall of a boat that is at 4'10". So, I did it the "hard core way" as Peter put it--just belly flop into the boat and pray hard that you don't flip back the other way.

All in all it was a great day. Joy and Raegan, and Jason, adn I lauged about it for hours at dinner at Sonny's over dinner. The best part is that we bonded. As friends, we made memories that will forever tie us together. I will never forget the Saturday afternoon that Peter and this girl Amanda and I flipped our canoe in the middle of the Juniper Run.