Ya Gotta Regatta!! (Or do you?)

The weather this weekend was the big story.  The whole way out it was cold and rainy, and there had been rumblings within the troops about abandoning the plan to go into the water.  Hell, there was talk of not even doing the camping thing, but staying at Mark and Mary's, with their dry roof and warm heat.  I was the last holdout but by Friday mid-day, the torrential rain and cold winds had finally convinced me that we didn't have anything to prove by being wet and freezing.

We did head over to the campground to see the rest of the crew we're friends with and to be honest, the weather had actually settled down for a few hours.  It was still chilly and overcast, but the rain had paused.  Mike and I were seriously talking about coming back in the morning and going in with the rest of the crew (Kevin said he would drive us out if that's what we wanted).

Maybe it was just the beer; mellowing our concerns and giving us a rosy outlook in our minds...

Whatever it was, it was quickly eradicated when the winds suddenly picked up, the thunder, lightning and rain all returned with a vengeance.  We said our hasty goodbyes, wished our brave compatriots luck, and jumped back into the Jeep to head back to the comforts of civilization.

The next morning, the news started arriving; the Regatta had been cancelled!  The water was too high, moving too quickly, and there were undercurrents that were causing all kinds of concern to the organizers, as well as the rescue personnel who would be stationed along the way.

"How can they stop it?" we thought.  It's a public waterway, with too many spots to launch from.  But then more word came in; they were posting cops at all the entry points to prevent any idiots from going in anyway.  Huh.  Ok, I guess that's how they can stop it.

But I guess the adage; "where there's a will, there's a way" won out.  In the early afternoon, word came back from the campsite; I guess the organizers had stepped back, saying that while the official event was cancelled, they weren't able to keep people out of the river all day.  If folks wanted to go in, they did so at their own risk.  So of course; some folks were braving it.

I guess a few small groups of boats gave things a try and wound up completing the entire run in an hour and a half.  Bear in mind this usually takes us about 6 or 7 hours. Granted, that includes lots of stops for eats, beers, and peeing, but still.  6 or 7 hours, compared to 1.5 hours.  That's pretty amazing.

I believe Sped and Myszka were in the second group to give things a try but I'm not sure.  We had a free day on our hands now that we weren't doing the regatta, and we spent it in a fantastic way; Mark finally had some work for us to do.  (I think it's been years since they've actually had any chores that we could help them with so it felt awesome to be paying something back again.)

A large spruce tree had been taken down beside their house and the branch/brush pile was enormous.  We dragged it all out back to the edge of the lawn to be burned at a later date when things dried out.

Well, the "at a later date" plan was quickly scrapped and with some help from Mother Petrol, we soon had two huge bonfires going, despite the rain that was coming down (we had to split the brush pile into two piles because if we'd reassembled things into just one pile again, it would've been a conflagration assured to bring unwanted attention from town personnel.

We kept an eye on the fires until we were confident they'd burned down enough to not be a concern, cleaned up, and headed out and about for the evening.

Overall, it was a successful trip out, even though we didn't wind up doing the river thing.  None of us regretted our decision to abandon the flood camping and ripcurrent regatta, that's for sure!  We got to see so many folks; many of them the regulars we see whenever we're out there, but others which we don't get to see as often as we'd like to, so that was awesome.

Hopefully next year's weather will bring a return to the warmth and sunshine that we've seen there before.  If not...we'll still head out, but we may just leave the kayaks behind.

Tomorrow's weather looks cold, but free of precipitation, then rain for a few days so we're definitely not in the clear yet.  I'm looking forward to riding tomorrow, though.  I need to get some miles on, badly!

Ciao for now...