Turning 33 - Waking Up in Paradise!

I'm not terribly cranked up about aging, but I'm a big fan of evolving, maturing and growing.  It seems that waking up on the Buffalo River for a few days around that auspicious time would be appropriate to continue to grow as an adventurer and human.  My Dad graciously opted to celebrate with me by doing a North Maumee to Rush run.  We had 3 days to run a placid 20 miles.

Let's take a moment to look at evolution and maturity for an adventurer.  I support rustic, low impact, high speed / low drag adventure, but I found an air mattress made for rough travel and we have a special relationship.  It's no base camp bed, but it is luxurious when you wake up staring at a bluff on the Buffalo and your back isn't completely angry because of that one pokey river rock that terrorized you through a sleeping pad all night.  It is also wonderful to support the tent that has supported you for 10 years through all sorts of weather, relationships and adventures.  It is also ok to realize it has been adventured out and to seek out its evolved big sister to continue through your next 10 years of adventure.  Here's to 10 more years of engineering, design and simplification sponsored by Marmot!  Lastly, meals don't have to be disgusting on the river.  We had a full bore hot dogs, mac and cheese and s'mores cookout one night and epic chicken fajitas the second night.  All prepared to come out hot and fresh at the same time.  This is what maturing and creating a luxurious expedition look like.  If I could only solve for keeping sand out of things.....

As you can tell, we were primed for adventure with a comfort twist and a big Jackson Cruise 12 facilitated the majority of the gear hauling.  It is important to know that the seat sits high and is more like a lawn chair than anything comparable.  #winning

The first day was hot and full of wildlife.  We enjoyed clear blue skies, a lot of company for a Wednesday and even clearer water running with fish.

Deer didn't care.  This became a delightful theme.

Turtles were sunning in droves.  I always appreciate the ones that are brave enough to not jump back in when we float by.  It has to be terribly challenging to get up on those rocks, stumps and logs.  

My Dad and I!

My favorite character of the whole day.  His cousin showed up at the campfire later.

These two guys had brought a pretty significant lunch and no way to light a fire and prepare it.  They were gifted one of 3 lighters we were carrying (because I am paranoid and find flint steel too challenging to fool with at dinner time).  After an exchange of beers for our support we went on to chants of "we have fire!"  We saw them hung over, sad and at least 4 miles from the take out at dusk.  It wasn't funny, but it wasn't surprising either.  The dangers of day drinking...

More critter evidence.

Using UTM to find our place and our way.  

You have to have snacks to plan.  This is imperative to success.

After a long day of playing in the water, snorkeling, snacking and exploring we found a perfect camp spot just past Spring Creek.  It was time to settle down for a perfect quiet night on the river.  

Weenie roasting master.

Dry feets!

The moon was so bright the entire beach was illuminated.  No headlamps needed to facilitate s'mores and camp set up. 

Pre-storm, no fly, awesome view of the moon.

Fortunately we prepositioned ourselves to handle the storm that eventually rolled in at 5AM.  With a lot of lights and sound, my Dad managed to wake up, wake me up and we rolled our plan into action.  Work the plan!  Rain fly was attached, breakfast was brought to the tent in case we got trapped and our clothes line was disassembled so underpants wouldn't blow downstream.  It was a wonderful and exciting start to my birthday.  We slept in an epic storm for 3 hours and woke up to cloudy skies and birds chirping like nothing had happened.  

That's a lot of fun on the bow.

More planning...

The little fawn that ran the beach at Devil's Tea Kettle Spring.  She was on the move!

Butterflies being a little gross, but gorgeous.

Our hideout for storm #2.  That Sweet Gum tree was a blessing while trying to set up the tent in blowing rain.  

This is how night two went:

We had a creepy, Criminal Minds vibe type guy that had been odd all day along the river.  Hard to explain, but everything was off.  A mega storm blew in early and we decided that serial killer or not, we had to stop and set a seriously hardened camp to ride it out.  He floated on whistling as the storm cranked up (this was even more weird).  The storm blew over in under 30 minutes and we ended up with camp set up early.  Watching the nice group of 30+ boys decide to camp 50 yards down the beach and being a little crushed, we decided they were a good buffer in case the creeper camp back and really was a serial killer....  They sent an Adonis looking alpha male over to apologize for camping so close, offered us soggy vanilla wafers and then we found out our neighbors were teenage Mormons on a big adventure from Texas.  Best case scenario, but boys are certainly loud in all aspects of being.  The slasher didn't come back to camp, the boys bailed with much revelry by 7:30AM and we were treated to a quiet rain, peeking out to see cloud covered bluffs and woke up slow.  It was strange, but worked out in it's own way.  

Sunset over crazy boy camp land.

Someone had to blow on that fire.  Way to go Dad!

Laughing about the absurdity of the evening.  Love that we can share a tent and that the air mattress makes life so much better for all adventurers.  Seriously, an expedition type air mattress is a game changer.  

Can't beat the morning view.

Our last wildlife of the day and we made it to Rush. 

We took a wonderfully extended ride home that involved BBQ, stain glass window shopping, knife shopping, a pottery demonstration at Osage Pottery Works, chatting with locals, Sneed Cemetery (I've adored it since I was a kid), and finally demobilizing gear and picking up dogs.  It was the most relaxing and dawdling ride home from the Buffalo River I've ever had.  It was a perfect reset for a new year of being.  

Cemetery had a tree down.  Fungus was still going!

Find the skink!

I know I'm way too excited about being in Sneed Cemetery.  My Dad tolerates so much bizarreness.

I'm committed to growing, adventuring and making sure the journey is with people I love.  It should be a great year.  Let's get out there and live!