Special Edition add-on

This one is for Mike in FLA,,, Since the bugger can’t hear me when I tell him, NO about giving donations,,, I figured I had better come up with a little sumpin’ for the Mad Bugger.

Special edition podcast, no politics, absolutely NO politics in this’un.

Begin of transcript.

I’d like to welcome you all back to the Cog Speaks and today’s going to be a little different. This is at the behest of Brother B. He suggested that I tell you a little story of an adventure. And this is back in I don’t know how 2021-22 I don’t remember. But we all went up to Frankfurt to go Whitewater kayaking down the Elkhorn, and we did two runs. We did a top to bottom twice,,,

 And we get there…  And you need to realize that I’m like a rank amateur at this. I have no idea what the heck is going on; What I’m getting into!   I’m a long boater at this point. I like long boats. I still love long boats!   And here I am. I’m in a kayak that’s barely nine feet long, and we call them spud boats because they kind of look like a potato. Nervous as all get out and,,, We got Brother B running around doing his thing with M and basically what they’re doing is they’re being the shuttle bunny. 

So,, making sure that we got transportation at the bottom of the river,(and) at the top of the river. And I’m sitting there with all of our boats at the top up with sister T. That’s Brother B’s wife. And she just will not let me alone. She’s talking to me, talking to me. We had a couple people come up. She wouldn’t let me do anything. I didn’t have time to look at my phone. 

So we get on the water, all four of us. And I know right then and there,

my ass is in trouble.

That water is moving about seven miles an hour. The first half mile is just flat. And then you get up to where the river goes behind one of the bourbon’s distilleries. I think it’s,,, anyway, it’s one of the distilleries. There used to be a dam there. And it’s really, really, really moving. 

Actually, if you look at the top of my blog and you’ll see a picture there of me and a boat, that is what they call Dam wave. That’ll give you an idea of the kind of water that we’re dealing with at this point. 

I’m freaking out the first half mile. I’m freaking out. This water is moving. I mean eight mile an hour. You don’t even have to paddle. It’s pulling you. And I’m just thinking, 

‘oh my god, oh my god, what have they got me into?” 

And then we get up to the distillery and you can just ‘kind of’ see the water. And you can hear it, but you can’t see it because it just drops. In the space of about 100 yards, that water goes from level one to four feet lower. And it’s all rock. It’s just splashy. Big waves, big standing waves. And that’s what Dam wave is. It’s a standing wave.

 I don’t even remember that part. I really do not recall that part that well, because it was just I was in full panic mode. And it was just just keep my ass up and pointed down to point it downstream and thinking, “what did my brother get my ass into this time?”

 So we get through Dam wave. We get through the rapids afterwards. It’s really just splashy water. But then that goes into S-turn, which is what it is. It’s an S-turn. And at the bottom of S-turn is what they call rootball. Well, rootball is no longer a rootball, but it’s still a standing wave there where the water swishes around and then it really stands up and folds over to the left. Again, I’m like, “what did he do to me?” Because I’m an newb at this stuff. All of my experiences in anything rough is open water with no current. And here I am in current that’s moving about eight mile an hour. I think we were moving it was at a thousand CFM at that point. But I’ll explain that here in a minute. 

So anyway, hit rootball and I just slid right through it. I only had to brace roll, you know, brace one time. I didn’t actually roll. I only had to brace up one time and B’s sitting down at the bottom of it and he’s just applauding. 

And that helped.

 Well, we go through all this river and it’s about five miles and get to the bottom. And of course, you know, B is just like, “hey, how’d you do?”   “I guess I did okay. I did all five miles dry hair”,  and he’s like, “how fast was it?” And I say That’s “like five, six hundred CFM.” And that means cubic feet per minute. B says “Unuh! Look at your phone”. I pull my phone up and I’ll pull the river up. It’s moving at a thousand CFM… And they all start laughing! I was like, “I get it now. You fuckers. I get it”. Sister T had been sitting up there making sure that I was not able to look at my phone because she knew if I saw that thousand, I wouldn’t get on that river. She knew it. They all knew it. But they did this just to make sure I got in. So we got down to the bottom of my dry hair day. We head back up. 

And we’re doing it again. 

I’m a lot more comfortable at this point. I get through the Dam wave, go through S-turn. Is all happy, happy, happy. And but the water is dropping. The level is dropping.  from a thousand to eight hundred, I believe it was at the time. And the thing about Elkhorn is the higher the level, the smoother the water. And then as it comes down, it starts getting rougher in places. To a point, obviously, there’s going to be a point,, at some point where it’s not navigable. So anyway, we’re going through this. And we get further down. And we have to take a different route because the route we took the first time around is no longer flowing. Well, this spot has three passages, it kind of veers off river right. And there’s three passages. You got channel one, channel two, channel three, river right to river left. Well, I’m thinking I’m going to go hit channel two right down the middle because it looks, it looks tame compared to the other two. Well, at that point, M, who’s in a very similar boat to mine, but a much better paddler, because he doesn’t paddle longboats, but he knows how to get his boat moving and not, and keep it in control. I’m still a newb about this because I’m used to longer boats that are a lot much more controllable, even though you’re a sloppy paddler. And so anyway, M cuts down channel two where I’m headed. And it completely screws me up. My boat tries to pull into his, bow, er , stern wake. It’s cock-eyed to the current, the current. It’s blowing, blowing, blowing. I mean, it’s a, wow, moving fast. And, uh, I lost control. And I look downstream and I’m looking over my left shoulder at this point. And I’m looking downstream and I just see this rock. And rocks are like magnets in a river. The minute you see one, you’re headed for it. It’s like a magnet. It just pulls you right in. So I hit this rock. Boom! Port side of my kayak goes vertical. Current starts pouring on top of my deck. I did the only thing I could think to do and I just reached out with my right hand and bam, braced myself up, pushing off the bottom of the river. I’ve got water pouring over my right shoulder, piling up on the deck, pinning me to this rock. I can’t move.,,

 I’m, I’m calm. 

I’m like,” okay, now what?” So I kind of raised my head up and look over the side of the boat down stream. And I can see M and B, you know, they’re, they’re both, “oh shit, our newbs in trouble.” And so they’re heading for the, the closest point they can get where they can get out of their boats and come up and give me a hand. And I’m just like, “I got to get out of this”. So I’ve got my paddle in left hand, right hand holding myself up off the bottom of the river. And I’m like, “hmm, this paddle is going to mess me up”. I just kind of look over yell “catch!”. And I toss that paddle out there. And then I just try to stand up in my boat. And I’m not really standing up in my boat mind you. What I’m doing is I’m putting all my pressure, all my, as much pressure on my foot pegs as I can while I lean straight back across the back of the deck. And what that does is it causes that boat to turn off that rock pointing with the current, not against the current, pointing with the current. And at that point, I rolled right up, and I’m sitting on top that rock. “Well, that worked.” 

 I pop my spray skirt. I pull out my hand paddles.” I’ll be with you boys in a minute.” And they’re cheering. They’re absolutely cheering. “Hot shit!”  “Yeah!”  (So I) Get back into current. Come back around. 

And guess what? I never got my hair wet. [Music] END transcript.

Just a little something different for y’all.

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