My First Camping and Floating Experience on the Meremac River

It was my birthday on the 21st, and Jess had decided to take me on a camping and float trip on the Meremac River. We were invited to go with Heather as part of her annual float trip. I was very nervous going into this, as I am deeply terrified of the woods. I’m not sure why, but I feel that at any moment some giant southerner in blue jean overalls, no front teeth and a pitch fork will abduct me in the middle of the night and torture me like in ‘House of 1000 Corpses.’  I think Jess knew that I would be more comfortable on a camping trip if I was surrounded by a group of friends, and she was right. I’m happy to report that the trip went off without a hitch, and I even learned an important lesson in fear and kindness along the way.

We camped at Garrison’s, somewhere around Cuba, Missouri. When we arrived at the camp grounds, I was even more nervous than when we started, but I was determined to make this a fun trip. I knew that once I got into the swing of things, everything would be fine.

I never knew that Jess possessed such tent building mastery, but she was a pro. She somehow knew where everything went, and how to go about putting it all together. We all struggled to keep up. By the time we were done our clothes were all drenched in sweat so we decided to jump in the river and cool off.

Once we got out of the water and sat down to eat, we heard a commotion. Several drunken men wearing camouflage swim wear and straw cowboy hats decided to get into a fight. This was extremely interesting to watch, but it raised my second major fear about this trip: Having a bunch of drunken rednecks come over and start a fight with us for no apparent reason.  After a while of commotion, the fight was broken up and the people were transported away.

Shortly after, a few women appeared trying to carry a small girl in a red bathing suit that had apparently just purchased a new set of legs. She kept falling over herself before finally staying on the ground. The boys in the camouflage came back to look for them, and after a few more beers, they strapped the girl to a cooler and wheeled her away.

After that, the night went pretty smoothly. It was nice being out in the open air. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen such a full view of the stars. We made marshmallows by the fire and sat around and talked all night. There was something very warm and inviting about the entire experience, and by the end of the first day we were completely wiped and were in bed by 11.

Up bright and early at 8am. Rick cooked those great, low-fat sausage egg and cheese breakfast sandwiches and we all took a minute to eat. Our breakfast was interrupted by a furry caterpillar who was moseying his way across our land.

Everyone stopped to reflect on the trials and tribulations of his journey while I took the opportunity to take pictures of everyone staring at it. The caterpillar managed to make it all the way across our breakfast site before his life was terminated by Chris, who by trying his hardest to avoid the caterpillar, managed to step directly on him.

It was now almost time for the bus to pick us up and take us to our floating destination, so we all scrambled to get everything packed. During our packing, there was a large group of men with southern accents who had appeared by camp site. They were waiting to take the same bus.

My fears shot up again. This time propelled by the fact that we had three men in our group who practice very alternative lifestyles. Don’t get me wrong, I could care less about a person’s sexual orientation. On the other hand, there was a nagging feeling in the back of my mind that a bunch of southern ‘good old boys’ might not take too kindly to that way of life in their neck of the woods. I knew for sure that this was it.  We were going to die.

Heather, in all of her infinite wisdom and courage, decided to just go up and talk to them. Honestly, that never occurred to me. It turns out that they were actually really nice people on a Church retreat. We rode the bus with them to our drop off point and they even let me take pictures of them for our website. I learned a valuable lesson in discrimination today. I think the phrase “Never judge a book by its cover” sums it up pretty well.

We arrived at our destination and my excitement was racing. We packed all of our items in our two rafts, waved goodbye to the nice lady fishing, and we were on our way down the Meramac!

We met Jeff the fisherman at our first sandbar stop. Again, appearances can be deceiving and I learned another important lesson in life. My immediate thought was that he probably had a cabin nearby and if he is capable of skinning fish, then he should be equally capable of skinning our entire group.  It’s funny that when we don’t immediately understand something, our immediate reaction is to fear it. I give Nick a lot of credit for going up and talking to him. It turned out that Jeff was actually a pretty nice guy. Nick went up to talk to him, and Jeff taught him how to fish. Shortly after, Heather joined in and was fishing with them.  She even caught one!!

The best part of this sandbar trip (and possibly even the entire trip), was watching my beloved wife look for arrow heads along the shore. To this day, I have never seen such a beautiful sight, and I will always look forward to the times when we are on a beach and can search for arrow heads. There was something so simple and innocent about it and it made me realize just how special she is to me. It felt like I was falling in love with her all over again.

After about 15 minutes of searching, we found an arrow head! It was only a piece of one, but still in pretty good condition. Shortly after, Jeff the fisherman decided to move to a new spot (I guess we were scaring away all the fish); so we decided to move on with him.

On route to our next sandbar, Jess decided to break out her bubble machine and bless us all with colorful bubbles. Nick and Paul had us stop at a very large tree so they could jump off of it. We all thought that this was a bad idea but they went for it anyway. Evidently the water under the tree was very shallow because on impact, Nick though that he broke his legs. I guess no one thought to check the depth under the tree before jumping in.

What came next surprised even me: Jess decided to make an announcement. She wanted everyone to know that she had decided to go back to school. She has been very proud of this decision and wanted to share her accomplishment with her friends. It was well received with a big round of applause. At that moment, I thought that nothing could top the level of happiness and joy that I was feeling…. until I witnessed what happened next.

We came across a giant cross standing on a sand bar.  Why was it there? Where did it come from? Was somebody buried there? Without concern for her own life, Jess immediately jumped off the boat and ran towards the cross. She started jumping up and down in front of the cross to pretend to look crucified, and in one awesome motion, knocked the cross down.

She hurried to pick the cross up and tried to re-position it, but it was just too heavy. After all attempts to straddle and replace the cross in its original position had failed, Jess did the only thing she could think of to try to take attention away from her accident: she ran. Jess made a mad dash back to the boat and we quickly paddled away.

The rest of the day went off without a hitch. We came across another group of travelers who were jet skiing. They even gave Heather a beer because we had run out. On their way back, we repaid them with the best gift of all: The girls flashed them. The jet skiier, completely blindsided, almost crashed into our boat.

That sums up my first camping experience. I had one of the best times of my life, and I look forward to doing it again. Maybe next time I won’t be so afraid of people who are there just trying to have a good time. Maybe the only reason I was even afraid of them is because of the way they looked and they way they were dressed. I never thought that I would be in that kind of position, but I guess it happens to all of us. The best I can do now is to try to remember the positive parts of my experience and use them in a way that won’t make me as fearful or hesitant to be around another group of people in the future. Maybe that’s something everyone should have to learn.