​Take out adventures and misadventures

[Guest]

Now all we need is for Mike M to start a thread about take-out misadventures. Hint hint.

Dammit Brad, 30 years of group trips, I don’t even know where to start.

The friend who overshot the take out by 3 bridges, ending up past where the thermal imaging S&R helicopters were looking?

The friend who successfully completed every mile of an insanely windy and extremely challenging trip, one of the three out of twelve guys who refused to give up (AndyS) and did the whole trip, only to hit a deer with his car 2 miles from the take out.

The paddler I invited, although I knew him only thought his reputed inter-net fame. Who quit one mile (and an hour of us waiting for him to “catch up” that mile) into a trip, and then threatened that his wife would have sued me if he had drown. In 2 feet of water.

My personal best: Locking 5 sets of keys in the van at a remote take out. Yes, five sets of keys; my primary set, my wife’s primary set, both our PFD pocket spares and a freaking fifth key in my essentials bag. I loaded all of the gear in the van, moved it three feet to facilitate loading the canoes and tossed my keys on the dash as I shut the door.

The door shut with the keys in midair and the remote landed on the door lock button.

More of a put in misadventure, the folks who couldn’t get their crap together on a weekend of rivers car camper.

This happened every dang year and I had grown tired of it.

I need to use the bathroom. I forgot to pack a lunch. Wait, I need to drive car as well? Sundry if well explained shuttle misconceptions. Every time one missing paddler came back to the row of idling cars another found some reason to wander off. ARRGGHHH!

I finally drove off after 30 minutes of waiting them. I had warned them repeatedly that I was going. They finally got on the road 20 minutes behind the main group and asked the local outfitter, whose shop was our take out, were we would probably be putting in.

The outfitter, who admittedly did know me from past trips, sent them an additional bridge upstream, something he knew we had, rather stupidly, attempted a few times in the past.

That additional river section featured wayyy to many huge cypress strainers to count and they spent 12 solid hours, well into darkness, battling their way through. The good part was that they were all dang well ready to go on time next trip.

Another put in adventure. The Aussie visitors who drove my beater loaner truck, racked with my beater loaner boats, several hours away to a put in, marveling at the honks and thumbs up they received on the highway. Crikey folks here are friendly.

They had no idea the tailgate sported a freshly made sign reading “Poor White Trash Canoe Club”. That sign made the surreptitious rounds for several years to come.

Maybe the most memorable was a could-have-been-ugly take out. I organized a novice group trip on the Monocacy River. I had over time paddled the entire length of that gentle river and “knew” every good put in and take out. We set a shuttle with the needed boat-toting cars at the take out and had a delightful group float.

At the end of the float we loaded all the boats and gear and drove up to the road to find a now padlocked gate across the access. Well dang. . . .

I had a set of bolt cutters in my truck (still do), which was unfortunately one of the vehicles at the put in. I hitch hiked back (great, memorable ride) and got my truck. One of the guys who stayed behind remembered seeing a “Yard Sale Today” sign a few miles away during that morning’s shuttle. He walked there and bought a used hacksaw for what pocket money he had collected.

He and I arrived back at the take out simultaneously, to find the farmer who owned the gate, lock, land and road with his key in the padlock, freeing our companions.

He was a wonderfully friendly old guy. He told us where he lived, just let him know anytime we wanted to use the access road, here’s my phone number, glad to see you all enjoying the river.

A wonderfully friendly old guy, who knew all the local rumor and history. A talker, the sort I usually relish.

The conversation might have been more enjoyable if I hadn’t had been grasping at my groin in an attempt to hold onto a pair of bolt cutters stuffed down my pant leg. Although he might have felt pity for me as I stiff legged around, an apparently herniated cripple.

 

[Sweetfancymoses]

By Job, at least it beats a boring life.

 

[Mihun09]

On our second trip up to Wallace Lake and beyond in 2009 Christine had the brilliant plan that we should drop her bike in the bush at the Birch Falls picnic area on the Wanipigow River and instead of going back up the Wani to Wallace Lake at the end of the trip, we could take the shorter route down and then she would ride back to get the truck. She had been up from Birch Falls to the portage from heck and wanted to do the whole affair coming downstream, although she had actually never gone Over the portage from heck that previous Autumn.

So, we did just that, ditched the bike and went on our trip. On the way out, it was a cloudy dreary day as turned right instead of left at the Broadleaf Junction with the Wanipigow. We found a couple of swifts and then each rapid had a good portage until we got to the portage from heck.

It started out flagged but on top of the hill it was an old clear cut and the trail disappeared. We dropped the gear and started hauling first load across, keeping the river noise on our left since we had to go that way. After finding the other side we dropped that load then spent over an hour trying to find the rest of it. At about this point it started raining, a nice, cold, rain. After we found the gear we did a lot of bush bashing to get everything across. The remainder was easy enough and we were out to the picnic area mid afternoon with the steady cold rain still with us. Christine grabbed her bike and headed off to Wallace Lake Park to get the truck while I sat and waited, and waited, and waited.

I walked out to the road a couple of times and on one of those occasions, a truck with a canoe came along from the Wallace Lake direction. I inquired about Christine's whereabouts and they had passed her awhile back. They had planned to do the route we had just come from but turned back due to the forecast of incessant rain the next 5 days. Turns out they were members of MyCCR that we had spoken to before online and we had a nice little chat and I bummed a couple of smokes, then they departed and I went back to waiting.

Eventually she showed up and was frigid cold and exhausted. It was a 17km ride on hilly gravel road back to the park and she overestimated how easy it would be.

Later on the road home we had to stop for a bit as she was having a maybe heart attack. It was obvious she was in a fair amount of distress after a day of paddling and the ride but she recovered enough so I could get her home.

Never again.

 

[Bioguide]

Nice list you have there Mike. Here are two that come to my mind:

After leading a group trip of 4 canoes and 4 kayaks on a day trip to Branch Pond in the Vermont Green Mountains using an outfitters boats and trailer and "knowing" I double checked the tie downs we arrived back at the outfitters with 2 less kayaks! We recovered 1 we found in the back of a pickup truck crusing on the highway but never recovered the second one.

I was on a spring white water canoe run on the Kayaderosseras Creek in NY with a good friend. We both drove our cars leaving his at the take out. When we arrived at our take out I jokingly said to him "you do have your keys right"....you guessed it... he left them in my car.

 

[yellowcanoe]

Titled "Find the takeout"
Back some 26 years ago there weren't any good Wabakimi maps. I had some section sheets that I had gotten from the MNR in the 1970's and topo maps. So we had a good idea of where the portages were.

Fortunately we had flagging tape.. We had to cross a couple of boggy areas full of tall grass to get to the water. Not wanting to make the same trail as eventually it would collapse we decided to mark where the packs were and then go across this long area and dump them. Fortunately nearby tamaracks made flagging easy. But from beginning to end you could not see the packs on the ground

So that same wonderful day we had two portages 1600 m and 900. A tiny pond in the middle. Off we go. The trail was very faint and often you had to crouch down to look for a depression.. Clearly hadnt been used much since the 1950's or so.. But we made it to.. the POND???? Wha hoppen? A bog that was too soft to stand on yet not wet enough to paddle.. We curse our topo map and the section sheet
Last field review :1927. O.

Now we have to figure out a way to get around. Wearing light packs we set off with orange tape. flagging... but where is the 900 on the other end? We don't want to miss that. Where we thought it ought to be we look for depressions.. After 30 minutes..yay a depression with rusty cans!! Woohoo Celebrate Garbage . We go back and get the rest of our gear and remove the tape on the last pass

900 m+- later we find ourselves in an old lumber camp filled with rusty trash and old machinery on the shore of Cache Lake in Wabakimi

 

[Glenn MacGrady]

In the blazing heat of early August, after paddling paddling Mono Lake in California (in the halcyon days when it actually had water) -- where the unforgiving Nevada desert collides with the granite western slope of the Sierra Nevada Mountains -- I took out my 22 foot, 30 pound, carbon-kevlar Hawaiian outrigger canoe, just as the infernal afternoon winds began to blow.

The blow became so violent I could not lift my light-but-unwieldy canoe on top of my van without it being ripped out of my hands and being smashed to smithereens against igneous landscape or the sedimentary tufa formations.

So . . . I didn't.

 

[Iskweo]

OK...try this one. I am doing a liesurely paddle/fish back down the Rice River one fall. Solo trip. REallly nice day. I get to the takeout and as I walk to the truck I see two locals. They are in dire straits. They have a 12ft tin boat loaded with hunting gear ( mostly beer), propelled by a sad looking old motor.

When I enterred the scene, said boat was teetering with about 4 feet of it hanging in air over the edge of the falls. One guy is on the far bank with a line wrapped around a tree, hanging on for dear life while the other guy is trying to pull the boat back over the edge by hand. For real?? So I run to the Highlander. I fire up the mighty Toyota and back down as far as I dare with the rear wheels just in the water. I have just enough rope to toss to him so he can tie off to his painter. With the tailgate up to see what I am doing I slowly pull that nasty old scow back over the edge and up into slack water where we can beach it.

They were suitably impressed and very thankful. I told them they had a tough slog ahead if they planned on getting that outfit upriver but wished them luck anyway. I have no idea how they made out from there.

Christine

 

[yellowcanoe]

Put in experience.. We didn't. Someone else did. The Buffalo at Ponca had just opened up technically but there was no airspace under the bridge.. Four of us watched and were thinking about safest place to launch as the current on one side would push you fast into a willow wad.
Two gals in a rubber Old Town launched on the side we thought to be the most dangerous and wouldnt you know it 100 feet and they were in the willows. The bow ran up the trees the stern sank under the water a little. One stood up and lit a cigarette( just the right thing to do?) the other clung to a willow screaming

We had throw bags and could get to them closer on the left shore. We yelled at the smoker to grab the line. After a couple of hits of cig she did.. The other needed to be babied cajoled and persuaded for ten minutes to let go the tree.. She got the line.. let go the tree....PLEASE.. let go the tree.. OK we will leave you there if you don't let go the tree..BUT MY CANOE! the canoe is good and wedged.. You can get it in a couple of days
Let go the tree.

WAAAAHHH...ahe let go..

They were local.. We took em home.

 

[Sweetfancymoses]

...the brilliant plan that we should drop her bike in the bush ... ride back to get the truck...

We, I should say 'I', being the frugal man that I am, had a similar idea to avoid the dreaded two vehicle shuttle. Canoe on the roof rack, bike on a carrier in the back, and road map in hand we travelled to the put in, where I dropped off my better half and drove to the take out. There, I came across a shortcut in the map which I decided to take with my bike on the way back. After some miles it ended in a swampy woods. I pushed the bike through the water and poison ivy (wearing shorts) and blissfully made it back with water plants dangling from my bike to where my wife was waiting in the road rather than by the water (the mosquito dope was in the car) saying, 'We're not going to do that again'.

This can be excused by an actual error in the map (and bad planning as to the whereabouts of the mozzie dope). The following is a reprint from an earlier post and is an example of inept map interpretation:

The first canoe trip I took with my wife about 20 years ago ranks high among the stupidest canoe related things I've done. The large scale road map I consulted in preparation for the trip didn't represent the rather meandering nature of our local flatland creek. The planned 2 hour maiden voyage of our Aerocraft tank turned into a 7 hour, 16 mile slog fest around uncounted log jams through knee deep muck. We didn't take water or anything else along. With dusk approaching, dehydrated, and at the end of our endurance we climbed up the bank resembling devonian amphibians climbing onto land. My wife knocked at the first door she encountered to inquire as to our whereabouts and was informed that we were about half way to our take out. The nice lady took my wife to our car and we will be eternally thankful for that.

 

[Guest]

I am still remembering misadventures from the 70’s and 80’s.

One of my favorites: A friend and I did a trip out in the Rockies. One truck, one boat, no shuttle service. We came to the take out bridge and cut the cards to see who was hitchhiking back to get the truck. I lost.

I walked up to the road at the valley bottom and stuck out my thumb. Not two minutes later a car slowly drifts down the mountain and creeps over to the shoulder where I am standing. So slowly I thought they had broken down. I walked up to see if I could help.

Two old ladies. Well, one old lady and one ancient lady. The old lady driver asks “Vant ride?”.

They are a mother and daughter pair from the Netherlands. Old lady daughter speaks a little English, her ancient mother none at all. The back seat of their car is absolutely crammed full of stuff up to the window level, but make room and I squeeze in.

Off we go. Remember how they had kinda coasted down the mountain? That was their steady speed, 25 mph tops. Logging trucks were passing us. Going uphill.

There was not a lot of conversation, although at one point the driver handed me a postcard and asked “Vee may zee vun?

A Jackalope. 25 mph Jackalope hunt. I had no hope of explaining this, so I told her “Maybe”.

25 miles an hour. No Jackalopes. All the windows are rolled up and the heater on. Stuffy. Not a lot to talk about. Most comfortable seat I’ve had in a week though.

I fell asleep. I woke up. I had no idea how long I had been asleep, or where the heck we were, but it was now getting late in the day.

I asked “Uh, so, how far have we gone?”

“Yah, var”

OK, let try this. “Are we still in Wyoming?”

“Yah, Vyoming”

Maybe I should test that. “Are we still in Montana?”

“Yah, Muntana”

Well crap, what the heck do I do now. Get out, resume hitchhiking (in which direction?) and ask the first driver who stops “Um, so where the heck exactly am I?”. That’ll make a good first impression.

Keep going until we get to a town with a bar and motel, and go back for my partner the next morning? He has the tent, sleeping bags and gear.

I am still debating that question when I see the sign for the dirt forest road turn-off leading to our truck. It is a dang long hike up the dirt road to our put in, but at least I’m not in Idaho.

At the turn off I see a welcome sight I remember from the drive in. There is a backwoods tavern at the turn off. I am thirsty.

“OK, great, thanks, I need to get out here”. I hope they understand that, but I can always tuck and roll at 25 mph. They stopped. I thanked them profusely. Yah Vyoming! Muntana! Jackalopes!

That was my kind of dimly lit cinder block backwoods bar. I had a beer. Two. Got talking with some of the guys at the bar. Bought a round. They bought a round. I was invited to join the local Rod & Gun Club. Great bunch of guys and I was groady enough to fit right in.

“Well Christ on a crutch son, you need a ride down to the river? Come on, I’ll take ya”. Country boys and pickup trucks, God bless America.

Got a dirt road ride all the way back to my truck. Never had to walk more than 50 feet from the take out to put in. Drove back to the take out. Didn’t go 25 mph this time, but still arrived well after dark.

My partner was getting ready to set the tent up. He was suspicious. Even accusatory. He saw me get a ride immediately. He remembered the bar on the corner. I smelled of beer, seemed pretty happy and had been gone for 7 hours.

He wasn’t buying the old Dutch ladies delay part of the story. I’m not sure he believes it to this day.

I wish I had the imagination to make that stuff up.

 

[Grandpa Paddler]

He wasn’t buying the old Dutch ladies delay part of the story.



Mike, not sure I would have believed you either!!! BTW, whatever happened to the Duckheads? Jon

 

[Guest]

BTW, whatever happened to the Duckheads?

The Duckheads was fun while it lasted, and it lasted nearly 30 years, but I simply burned out. It is now more of a state of mind than an organized (or disorganized) group.

I was planning and leading at least one trip every month, some of them big group novice day trips, some 4-day weekend of rivers trips paddling something different every day. A canoe orienteering event every year. At least one paddle in camper and a gentleman-only trip. A night float or two. Spur of the moment stuff.

Call it an average of at least 15 trips a year x 30 years. 450 group trips. 800 different paddlers (and 35 dogs) when I stopped keeping track.

One intentionally zooey day trip was one the distributed calendar as “Anything that floats”. 12 miles down a broad, novice flat section of the Potomac. That topped out one year at 40+ boats and 60+ paddlers. Just think about organizing that car shuttle. Somewhere there is an amazing photo of the lunch beach, with a row of 40 boats pulled up on the sand.

Those group trips were a never ending source of mishaps and misadventures. An allergic friend getting wasp stung on his penis. Absurd happenings on every gentleman’s trips. The new guy who ate a half a plastic bin of puppy kibble one night, thinking it was some snack food left on the table to be shared. We honestly didn’t know until we saw him chow down a handful the next morning. We barked at him for the rest of the trip.

The weekend of rivers trips were especially rich in misadventures. We would take over a State Park in August every year, timed for the Perseid meteor shower, and paddle a different local river every day. We had 70+ there one year.

Thank god not everyone paddled every day. Although that might have been easier; different folk would opt to hang in camp or head off for the beach on different days, which meant organizing a different river’s shuttle every day with a different group of paddlers and different vehicles. Arrgghh!

Those trips were where I learned to simply grin and bear it when someone who had never organized a shuttle explained their “Better idea”, which invariably omitted some element of getting all of the boats to the put in, cars to the take out and the necessary drivers shuttled one way or the other. Every freaking trip! Sometimes the same person I had explained shuttle concepts to last year!

It was worth it for the delightful group day paddling and Perseid meteor shower reclining nights. Think 40 people all laying on their backs on an expansive dock platform in the dark, making simultaneous “oooh” and “ahhh” noises. We made a little too much noise one night and the Ranger came down to scold us.

Not all the way down, he stopped abruptly 100 feet away. We didn’t know who it was walking down and the traditional Duckhead cry of “NO FLASHLIGHTS” rang out.

There followed a moment of silence, whereupon the Ranger shouted “I don’t know what you people are dong down there, but you gotta be more quiet. This is a family park” before turning heel and fleeing the scene.

It probably didn’t help that a year or two before someone (moi?) had brought a piece of sideway chalk down to the dock. There was a crime scene body outline chalked on the dock. Then another, suggestively posed. Another volunteer, similarly co-joined. Everyone got a body outline, including one of the dogs.

The dock was our skywatching no-flashlight zone. No really one knew how erotic that orgy of chalk outlines had become until the next morning. There was some significant endowment portrayed.

Sidewalk chalk is really hard to scrub off.

I was not married at the time, but one of those Perseid paddling trips was the first time I saw an “If looks could kill” from a woman. We had done a long mid-summer swamp trip float down the Pocomoke River. August sweaty hot, August buggy and swamp muddy scratched up. Everyone was psyched to get back to camp for beers and showers and dinner and star gazing.

The take out was a Chinese fire drill, with boats and gear randomly racked and stacked, folks running off to use the spot a pot and piling into cars and pickup truck beds wherever there was room for the ride back to camp. Woo hoo!

On the drive back we all needed to stop for beer and ice of course. And groceries. And the beer store doesn’t sell booze, someone hit the ABC store as well. Probably a stop for gas in there too, so we all made it back to camp at different times. A beer. A shower to get the smushed deerflies out of the scalp. Another beer. Get dinner started before it gets dark.

We all made it back to camp? Maybe not.

“Has anyone seen Mary?”

“I thought she was with you”

“Well she wasn’t in the van”

“She wasn’t at the grocery store with us”

“Is she in her tent?” “The shower?”

“No?”

Mary had been in the Spot-a-Pot. We drove off and left her in the swamp. Some hours ago. All alone. In the now still-buggy dark.

I drove back to get her. I have since come to know that look, but as a young fellow it was dang scary the first time, like being pierced by lightning bolt icicles of pure wrath.

At least I have never left the missus stranded at the take out. Something I can not say for several friends. More perhaps on that episode later.

 

[latremorej]

Mike, I sure am glad that you are a member of this board.... even if I had half, make it a quarter of the stories you do I sure wouldn't have the grit to sit here and type them up. Thanks for taking the time. You always pull a chuckle from me, that's fer sure!

Jason

 

[Guest]

At least I have never left the missus stranded at the take out. Something I can not say for several friends. More perhaps on that episode later.

And now it can be told.

Ok, actually, I have told this tale before. I was, as usual, the very picture of innocence, and had nothing to do with what transpired, and so I have nothing to hide.

We were doing a group trip down Conococheague Creek, taking out at Williamsport on the Potomac. This ended up being a trip with four couples, guys with their wives or girlfriends and me as a 5[SUP]th[/SUP] wheel. My wife could not make it for some blessed reason.

At the take out the 5 gents piled into the shuttle car to head back upriver and fetch vehicles up top, leaving the wimmen folk to wait with the boats.

The gentlemen contingent had driven all of 100 yards up into town when one declared “I need to take a piss. There’s a bar. Pull over”.

Cool bar there in Williamsport. Let’s just stay for a beer and warm up. Cheap pitchers? Sure then, a pitcher. Free shuffleboard? I’ll play the winner. Great juke box, we can’t leave yet, I’ve still got three songs left. Wait, who ordered this pitcher?

When we finally exited the bar we were shocked, shocked I tell you, to discover that it had gotten rather dark. We have since calculated that this is, in fact, quite feasible if you go into a bar at dusk and come out 2 hours later. We still had the entire shuttle to run. We could still see the wimmen folk waiting beside the canoes down at the take out.

We might have gotten away with it if we had coordinated our excuses. Unfortunately, when we finally arrived back at the take out, we all blurted out a variety of excuses. “We had a flat”, “There was a really long train”, “We were abducted by aliens”.

Being the very picture of innocence and honesty I could only offer that “It wasn’t my fault, they made me do it”.

After that unchivalrous shuttle the gents were not permitted to ride without a lady present. And we worried for years when the wives and girlfriends would say “Oh, we’ll run the shuttle. You boys just wait rightttttt here”

 

[scoutergriz]

No real stories of my own (well there was that one time that I slipped in the mud, went under the canoe, and bobbed up on the other side, with my wife wondering where I went), but my wife and I have a favourite pastime; We like to go to Algonquin- Canoe lake one Saturday in mid July, sit in the restaurant, and watch the rookies who refuse help trying to get in their rental canoes. My particular favourite- The "walkover"; One canoeist gingerly slides their butt into the canoe (usually the female) and sits holding the dock. The other party (usually male) in a show of bravado, steps down into the canoe, the canoe rocks, and said party completes the move by losing his balance and steps back out of the canoe, but on the opposite side, into 4' of water, swamping the canoe and leaving his less-than-impressed date chest deep beside the dock. Some of those of the gentler persuasion can really turn the air blue with their less than dainty comments!

 

[Guest]

Now all we need is for Mike M to start a thread about take-out misadventures. Hint hint.

Well Brad, you went and done did it now. My memory isn’t what it once was, so I pulled out the 3-ring binders of old trip reports from the 70’s and 80’s. Thanks.

Ah, to be young and stupid again. Or at least the young part. Although those times wouldn’t have been as memorable without the stupid.

Spending hours trapped on a mudflat on the Florida coast because “Tides?” What are these tides of which you speak?” A lot of that stupidity came from not listening. I was good at not listening.

1980’s. First trip down Boquillas Canyon on the Rio Grande in Big Bend. I had driven all night from SE Arizona and was psyched to get on the water. Got to talking with a lady in Boquillas Village and she offered to bring my truck to the take out in 5 days for a reasonable fee.

Great. I filled a 5 gallon carboy with water (it was late June, and 100+f), tossed the rest of my gear in the canoe and handed her my keys. Pick me up in La Linda in 5 days. Yeah, yeah, yeah, something about a gravel bar on river right just after the last island. See ya in La Linda.

Wonderful trip, but hot. Very hot. I had emptied 5 gallons of water in 4 days. I didn’t have a water filter (or know what one was). I settled some Rio Grande silt, “filtered” it through an almost clean pair of socks stuffed with toilet paper, added a few drops of iodine and drank that. Not much of it, 100F Rio Grande sock filtered iodine water is not very tasty.

I was really thirsty by the next day, down to La Linda I go. There’s the bridge. Pull up the canoe and wait for Mary. I think her name was Mary. Or Maria.

Waiting for Mary. Sitting under the bridge, waiting for Mary. Still waiting for Mary.

Mary, uh, Mary who? In my enthusiasm I didn’t bother to get her last name. Or bona fides. She has my truck, which essentially contains all of my worldly possessions. I can’t even walk into La Linda for a Corona, I have no money. Or ID.

crap, I’m broke, homeless and rapidly dehydrating under a bridge in Mexico. So this is how it ends.

Side note, at the time there was no customs, nothing at all, on the US side, and on the southern side only a shack with a Mexican who waved sleepily when vehicles drove past.

Not many vehicles drove past, but the rare times when one did I sprang from under the bridge all excited, only to have my hopes repeatedly crushed. This is not good, and appeared less good as the day wore on. Have another sip of the world’s worst water and wait some more.

And then a vehicle rumbled over the bridge. IT IS MY TRUCK. HOORAY!. Hugely relieved I walk out to wait for Mary (wonderful Mary!) to drive my truck (my wonderful truck!) down to the river by the bridge.

Wait, what is she doing? She’s driving through the desert along the river away from me. She isn’t stopping.

WAITTTT. STOPPPPP. I take off running through the desert, hollering and waiving my arms in desperation. Dehydrated, wobbly, running across the Mexican desert in the 100 degree heat, chasing my truck.

She finally stopped the truck a mile away. At a nice wide gravel bar. On the Mexican side, just after the last island. Sounded vaguely familiar.

She stepped out of the truck just as I wobbled up, fell to my knees and vomited the last of my Rio Grande sock water at her feet. If you could put a value on shock and horror her facial expression was priceless.

The denouement to that story. There was a little bodega a few miles away along the road on the US side. I bought a couple of ice cold water bottles, punched my favorite cassette into the tape deck and worked my way into 5[SUP]th[/SUP] gear, flying along a Texas desert back road, 70 mph, windows open, rehydrated, with my worldly possessions intact.

I knew, right then, at that exact moment in time, that it was the best I had ever felt.