I woke up on an usually hard surface, this morning. Even through the haze of departing sleep I noticed the unyielding surface, unwilling to accommodate whatever position I tried, in my attempt to again slip back into unconsciousness. As the pre-dawn light unhindered by the thin nylon, flooded my tent, I couldn't help but wonder why I still haven't bought a suitable air mattress. This was the beginning of Day two of the Sacco river canoe trip, with 8 miles, 2 thunderstorms, 15 beers, a couple shots of Jager already in. And "We could still see the launch" (O'Brien).
Day 1 started off just bellow the Swans falls Dam, thus avoiding the sobering effort of portaging the canoe around the dam. We were floating down river by 10 am. Soon after we are swinging from a rope swing, rafting our Canoes, and observing local wildlife. This includes someone paddling down the river on a floating beer pong table, a party float "The Sacco River booze hounds", and a purple 3 breasted "alien" blow up doll. By 4 we made camp. A couple hours later as we were getting ready for dinner, a thunderstorm rolled in, forcing us to quickly cover our gear. My original plan of boiling water for pasta in the camp fire didn't pan out as expected, and I ended up borrowing a stove. Next year when I finally spring for that air mat, I'm going to get the jet boil too. Just the same, the mac and cheese was good. At 10 another thunderstorm rolled through for about half an hour. Which pretty much sent everyone to bed. It was awesome watching the thunder and lightning from inside the tent. Also noted, my tent is definitly waterproof.
Day 2
Bulb, Adam, Jason, and myself started out early. Jason had to dive back to Jersey that night, and Adam was in their car, so I left with them at about 8, We paddled straight through the rest of the trip and finished at mile 19 by 12:30. Our trip back was slightly delayed by a wrong turn taking us off Rt 160.. Instead we found a really nice very twisty well banked road with lots of elevation changes, Rt153, which took us back to Rt16. For a while I was a bit frustrated no knowing where I was going. Then it dawned on me how tightly I've been wound up since I've been involved in this moving process. As I started to trow the MINI into one corner after another I remembered ho much find getting lost can be. I realized just how badly i really need to chill out. Overall I still made good time back to Boston, only to get back and realize how much more packing I had left to do.
