June 15, 2009
Hmmm, vehicle is loaded... no biggie we could unpack the vehicle. My sister is expecting us to drop of the boy at her place (two hours south of us) and keep him until Sunday. It's not fair to her to deny her the weekend with the boy, especially since she had taken time off of work to watch him. That and she only gets to keep him for the weekend maybe twice a year, just because of the travel distance. I was going to have to make the trip to drop off the boy anyway.
Then Wil calls and tells me to go ahead and bring Ktreva down for the weekend. We'll bar hop, maybe do some canoeing on the local lake, drink beer, barbque, drink more beer, make fun of people, drink beer, etc. I spoke with Ktreva, and we decided, what the hell and headed that way.
Now Wil wasn't in town Thursday night, he had to go play long haul trucker. That left it up to me to entertain Ktreva and Red. We went to the local bar, Buddie's. Unfortunately it was open mic night. This means that any American Idol reject wannabe can get up and sing. The last time I was in this bar it was open mic night, and Wil booed a girl off stage and made her cry. That was over a year ago. Guess who was back? I started yelling "you suck", but Red and Ktreva made me stop.
Friday Wil finally shows up, but just for enough time so he can change his clothes and then head out to Ottumwa, Ia. He had to pick up a load of John Deere combines and bring them to Galesburg. He asked if I wanted to go with, I said sure. I figured it couldn't hurt. Plus I had never ridden in a big rig, so I thought what the hell, why not. Yea, it's a good thing I went, I noticed a road construction sign on the way there that limited the width of vehicles to 10 feet, 6 inches. The load we had was 11 feet 2 inches. If I hadn't noticed it Wil would have tried to go through. Of course he'll deny this and say that he would have checked the load width and caught it before the accident could have happened, but I know the truth. Lets just say it would have ended up with combines all over the highway! HA-ha!
Saturday we actually decided to spend some time on the river. We put on the river at Fort Wallace (don't ask me why they call it that, there's not fort there) Just east of 74 and we pulled out at the Wolf Covered Bridge. We did this trip in about 30 minutes, which means that the river was flowing at about 6 to 8 miles and hour. We would have liked to have gone longer, but we already had the vehicles at the Wolf. However, it worked out okay because that gave us time to run to town, get some more beer and prepare for everyone to show up for the night barbeque.
That night Wil cooked a bunch chicken and pork chops for everyone. They were really fantastic. A bunch of guys showed up and we sat around, drank beer and talked. Except for at one point when Ktreva and I disappeared for a little exploration of Gilson. That is all I'm going to say about that tour. So for those of you that left before we came stumbling back at 1:30 in the morning, sorry. It was nice seeing all of you!
Posted by: Contagion at
09:12 PM
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June 10, 2009
IÂ’m pretty damn excited about this trip. It looks like the river is going to cooperate, so we wonÂ’t have to drag our canoes down the river. I get to spend the weekend with my wife and friends doing what we love, what more could I ask? IÂ’ve gone over our gear a couple of times now to make sure that we have no non-period, or non-period looking materials. Where this trip isnÂ’t juried, IÂ’m still trying to take the high road and make sure my stuff is right or as close as I can get with what limited resources are available to me with the time constraints.
IÂ’m sure some of my friends will give me some grief over some of preparations. I keep a journal of the re-enactments that I do in a period looking book. For my own reference I made a slightly detailed hand drawn map inside the bookÂ… that I based on the USGS topographic survey. Yes, you can scream loser at me now, but if I had the patience IÂ’d be a cartographer! This is an exploration and I like to document things. This brought me some hazing last year when I was using my portable GPS to document wear we were stopping, camping, etc. I just wanted to document the trip.
Now I know some people could care less about this type of stuff, but some of these are the same individuals that thrive on reading other peoples journals and seeing their maps. One of the highly debated topics amongst archeologists and historians is exactly where certain camps were specifically located, hence why they have spent years trying to find the Lewis and Clark sites. We love getting information from the journals, it’s a primary source. Yet I try to document something and I get the “We’re on the river, that’s where we are” statement. Its okay, to each their own and if they don’t like it, then I don’t have to share it with them! (Also they didn’t want to see the modern GPS, but we’ll just glaze over that fact).
This year IÂ’m trying something different. IÂ’m using some knowledge that I obtained since last years trip. I wonÂ’t be as accurate as a GPS, but IÂ’m sure I can get the general area. Of course the worst heathens on this trip (which are some of my closest and dearest friends) will still give me grief over it. Just like theyÂ’ll get over the fact that I give them grief that this trip is more akin to a drunken float down a river than it is to a canoe trip! (very little paddling) hehe
IÂ’ll let you all know how it went when we get back.
Posted by: Contagion at
05:01 PM
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