I'm Not One For Nature

This weekend, Rachel and I participated in the abbreviated version of the Mississippi River Challenge. It was 22 miles of canoeing on the Mississippi River for a good cause.

And poor Rachel had to listen to me ALL weekend.

First of all, it turns out that I hate camping. By the end of our last foray into camping, I had a sneaking suspicion that I hated camping, but I wasn't sure. But yep, I think I hate camping. No electricity, no music, no computers, no ANYTHING. But, we did get awesome cookies from Whole Foods and we got to speculate about our fellow canoers. My favorite people were: The Potheads, Tent Twinsie, Fake Tent Twinsie, Food Boyfriend, and Fun Guy. We later learned that Fun Guy's real name is Brian, but only because we heard him yell it at someone else while we were canoeing. Rachel and I were total canoe loners. Everyone else knew people! We knew no one!

Anyways, after a completely miserable night, during which my borrowed mummy sleeping bag tried to mummify me, we woke up and had a little breakfast. Time to canoe!

And canoe we did. My main motivators are food and anger. And I got both! There were three rest stops on the trip and I eagerly looked forward to each one. Yay - food! It was even organic, so I was forced against my will to be healthy. No pita pizzas though.

But between the second and third legs of the trip, we began to encounter more boats going very very fast on the Mississippi. They're entitled to go fast, but unfortunately, this creates a large wake. And large wakes make small canoes seem very tippy. I have bruises on the sides of my knees from bracing myself very tightly against the sides of the canoe. Rachel enjoyed the wakes - I say she's crazy.

So, as more boats went by at these high speeds, I grew angrier and angrier. At about mile 17, Angry Canoeing kicked in. Angry Canoeing consists of me canoeing very quickly, swearing at people in the motorized boats and wishing that I was not in such a small, capsizable boat. Rachel said she should have gotten me angry at the beginning and we would have cruised through the entire challenge.

We finished and it was a great event. I'm not sure if I'll do it again next year, but overall, I did have a good time. Friends of the Mississippi River does critical work to conserve and protect the Mississippi River and I'm so glad that they run such an excellent event.

Oh, and my arms after the event? I could barely hold a pen.