Friday started with 6 paddlers, The Pope, myself, Bob Arend in kayaks and Kathy S. Gwen English and Steve Flynn in the raft. Saturday Night was to be Geezer Appreciation Night and this had an adrenaline effect on our geezers. They came through the meat of Cucumber and all I can say is, if anyone ever tells you, you can’t cartwheel a raft they’re wrong. Our geezers proved it can be done. Check out Steve’s perfect form. Rumor is he wanted to take all the credit for the cartwheel and paddle stroked Gwen out of the boat. Gwen was sporting a nice black eye after this move and looked like a grizzled UFC warrior the rest of the weekend.
The Pope and I were lucky to have front row seats to witness the historical trick.
The rest of the day was pretty uneventful and a good time was had by all.Saturday’s paddle produced 18 hardy OACers ready for action. Pope, myself, Brittan, Will, Dottie, Steve, Jay, Matt, Bob, Pat, Honda Girl, Gwen in kayaks, Kathy, Jackie, Michelle and Steve in the raft, Brian and Sheila in the Shredder. Brittan kicked off the OAC swim match early with an epic swim through Entrance. Rumors were flying about Gwen’s Shiner. Steve denied butt stalking her out of the raft the day before and the new rumor was she copped a feel from Brian and got smacked down for her effort. With Geezer Appreciation Night just hours away it was hard to tell what really happened. Gwen was really feeling her oats and showed some style with a new move I like to call a tivo-boof. She goes to boof Frog’s Back and beaches up right on top of it. It was like pausing live tv. I was able to get out of my boat, use the bathroom and make a sandwich in time to get back in my boat, hit the play button and watch her finish the boof off the back side. It was a perfect boof other than taking 7 ½ minutes to complete.
Saturday night treated us to the first annual Geezer Appreciation Night banquet. Everyone brought their favorite dish and we pigged out OAC style. For whatever reason the geezers all brought a bean dish. We had more bean recipes than you could shake a geezer at. It made us all break out in song, Beans, Beans, the Geezer fruit, the more you eat, the more you toot…Once again a good time was had by all.
Sunday saw a decline and only the most hardy of OACers were up for another day of paddling. The geezers all on a bean hangover decided they had had all the action they could stand and went hiking instead. Something about the gas capacity of a kayak and the open air of the trail being better… I didn’t catch it all but something like that.
This day would prove to test the sheer mantastic grit of the OAC. It all started off pretty uneventful. Pope, myself, Matt Carey, Honda Girl and Dottie in kayaks, Brittan, Kathy, Jackie in the raft, Pat and Michelle in the Shredder. Everyone was paddling like a pro until we hit Dimple and chaos struck like lightning. After a successful splat off Dimple Rock I turned and watched in horror as Dottie and Scary Matt Carey got ended and began swimming. Honda Girl with a clean run ducks into an eddie to get a birds eye view of the carnage. The Pope cruises down the middle with ease thinking, “I’ll bet it sucks to be them.” I took off after Dottie cause she was closest to me. I’m floating backwards down the rapid offering helpful advice like “Lookout!” and “Watch that hole!” I tried to keep her mind occupied with things like, “Why didn’t you roll? Don’t you know it sucks to swim?” and “Is the water cold? It really looks cold.” This helpful advice was enough to get her into an eddie but caused me to break the #1 rule, don’t put yourself in danger helping someone else. I stayed with her 2 strokes too long. When I turned around I hit smack in the middle of the giant munchy hole above Swimmers. And I got worked. After 2 enders, 4 360’s and 3 dunks to the bottom of the river, the time equivalent of a Superbowl halftime show, the hole spits me out and I rolled up in time to slam sideways into the next hole. I came out of that one ok and managed to get to the end to help clean up the yard sale. Scary Matt Carey gave us all a good scare by tripping as he tried to empty the water from his boat. He landed on a bush and jammed a stick into his eye.
Maybe he was just jealous that Gwen was getting so much attention for looking like a UFC fighter and wanted to get in on the action. We were all quite worried about him as his eye swelled instantly shut. Pat offered to paddle his boat and let Matt ride in the raft. By the time we got to Bruner’s Run his eye was looking pretty bad and we were all mad at ourselves for not having a first aid kit. River Mom Kathy Sines saved the day by slamming into the last hole at Bruner’s and send Matt flying through the air where the current was able to flush out his eye. It’s that kind of quick thinking and caring that makes me proud to be part of the OAC. A good time was had by only a few on this day but overall it was a fantastic weekend.
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