But it's a good kind of hurt....
Jun. 20th, 2002 10:35 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ladyspriteLast night I came back from my vacation-trip - three days and two nights of camping, kayaking, and whitewater rafting. My legs are stiff and achy from our six-mile hike around the campground, and from clinging to an inflatable raft for dear life. My back is sore from sleeping on the floor of our cabin-tent. My shoulders are screaming from two steady days of paddling through rapids. I'm covered from head to toe in blackfly bites that make me look like I'm suffering from a nasty case of chicken pox.
I honestly can't remember the last time I had this much fun.
I never went camping when I was growing up; this was my second-ever experience (the first being also the first time I went whitewater rafting, about 4 years ago). My boyfriend the outdoor guru and boyscout made things easy for me, however, so I mostly got to reap the benefits of his skill and experience.
Moxie Outdoor Adventures is somewhere up in the far northern tip of Maine, past the last vestiges of civilization, and they put together the most fun trips I can imagine. Tuesday was spent piloting ourselves along class-3 rapids in little individual inflatable boats (I refuse to call them 'funyaks,' no matter what the flyers say). Floating down the river, pulling yourself along by your own strength and paddling, watching the absolutely gorgeous landscape and listening to the water and breathing the clean air is an amazing, contemplative pastime, at least until an unexpected patch of particularly ferocious whitewater grabs the nose of your boat and shakes it like a vicious dog with a chewtoy, then flips it head over tail, dragging you under and spitting you out 15 feet downstream.
Luckily, the lifejackets provided for the tour work quite well, and the guide eventually managed to find my floundering form and pull me back into my boat, which someone else had found drifting empty. Outdoor adventures, indeed. Also luckily, I was in the frame of mind to think of this as an exhilarating and fun escapade, and dove off into the rest of the ride laughing.
Wednesday was whitewater rafting. No matter how much fun the kayaks are, I think this will always be my favorite. The rafts are a bit more sociable and less one-person-against-the-elements, packing about half a dozen people into each one, and you can ride them through much heavier rapids. Our raft actually had 8 people, namely myself, my boyfriend, five extraordinarily rowdy high school students, and their shell-shocked teacher. It was rather like being piloted by Tom Servo and Crow T. Robot, and the highlight of the trip happened when one of the two boys piloting fell backwards out of the raft and nearly pulled three more students out after him, resulting in the loss of two paddles, the drenching of the entire boat, and our needing to paddle like our lives depended on it to catch up with the rest of the tour.
Gods above and below, it was fun. The rapids were high, tossing and bouncing us across the river like nothing else I can imagine. The Maine woods are gorgeous, and the weather was perfect - sun, blue skies, and warm enough that on the quiet stretches of river we could stretch out, take off our jackets, and bask.
So. I'm home now, sore and itchy and exhilarated. Probably not the best shape to go forth and paint my new apartment, but it was so utterly worth it for the experience. I never would have thought of myself as Wilderness Girl, but my mind is already planning for next time....
I honestly can't remember the last time I had this much fun.
I never went camping when I was growing up; this was my second-ever experience (the first being also the first time I went whitewater rafting, about 4 years ago). My boyfriend the outdoor guru and boyscout made things easy for me, however, so I mostly got to reap the benefits of his skill and experience.
Moxie Outdoor Adventures is somewhere up in the far northern tip of Maine, past the last vestiges of civilization, and they put together the most fun trips I can imagine. Tuesday was spent piloting ourselves along class-3 rapids in little individual inflatable boats (I refuse to call them 'funyaks,' no matter what the flyers say). Floating down the river, pulling yourself along by your own strength and paddling, watching the absolutely gorgeous landscape and listening to the water and breathing the clean air is an amazing, contemplative pastime, at least until an unexpected patch of particularly ferocious whitewater grabs the nose of your boat and shakes it like a vicious dog with a chewtoy, then flips it head over tail, dragging you under and spitting you out 15 feet downstream.
Luckily, the lifejackets provided for the tour work quite well, and the guide eventually managed to find my floundering form and pull me back into my boat, which someone else had found drifting empty. Outdoor adventures, indeed. Also luckily, I was in the frame of mind to think of this as an exhilarating and fun escapade, and dove off into the rest of the ride laughing.
Wednesday was whitewater rafting. No matter how much fun the kayaks are, I think this will always be my favorite. The rafts are a bit more sociable and less one-person-against-the-elements, packing about half a dozen people into each one, and you can ride them through much heavier rapids. Our raft actually had 8 people, namely myself, my boyfriend, five extraordinarily rowdy high school students, and their shell-shocked teacher. It was rather like being piloted by Tom Servo and Crow T. Robot, and the highlight of the trip happened when one of the two boys piloting fell backwards out of the raft and nearly pulled three more students out after him, resulting in the loss of two paddles, the drenching of the entire boat, and our needing to paddle like our lives depended on it to catch up with the rest of the tour.
Gods above and below, it was fun. The rapids were high, tossing and bouncing us across the river like nothing else I can imagine. The Maine woods are gorgeous, and the weather was perfect - sun, blue skies, and warm enough that on the quiet stretches of river we could stretch out, take off our jackets, and bask.
So. I'm home now, sore and itchy and exhilarated. Probably not the best shape to go forth and paint my new apartment, but it was so utterly worth it for the experience. I never would have thought of myself as Wilderness Girl, but my mind is already planning for next time....
