2004-06-05 – Long day on the Rum in the rain

Lee Jarpey & Keith Canny, Dave Dahl & Ed Arenz had started at 4AM and had 4 hours in by the time Al Dubois & Rick Lorenzen got there at 8AM.  We paddled upstream slowly until we ran into Lee, Keith, Dave, & Ed coming back down from past the 7^th Avenue Bridge.  Tom Gardner & Chuck Ryan were heading upstream as we passed them and didn’t want to circle back because they new that the others would take a while yet.  When Lee & Keith and Dave & Ed stopped to get new water jugs, Al and Rick paddled further downstream towards the dam and found a plastic pink flamingo stuck in debris under the railroad bridge.  Al said, “you gotta do some dumb stuff every now and then!” as he drained the water out of it.  Io Harberts & Kate Ellis had just taken out to switch partners.  Then we paddled back upstream past the landing dock again to find that the rest of the teams were still talking and not ready to paddle.  Al didn’t mind circling as long as we kept paddling so we could get his planned hours paddling.  We also wanted to practice riding on the wakes with lots of canoes.

Eric Canny & Todd Johnson, Kate Ellis & Scott Ankeny, Todd Ellison & Io Harberts, Marsh Jones in a C1, Steve Eurista & Dan Schafer, ?? & Dan Hassel, Jason Larsen & Jan Whitaker, Mike Morris & Stephanie Larsen, ?? & Sue Morris, Kathy & John Sullivan finally joined us.  It rained on us fairly hard, but the weather was warm enough and we were paddling hard enough to make it inconsequential.  It was nice to stay cool.

After 3 hours of constant paddling, my butt got sore and it was more difficult to keep it level.  Every time I twitched a cheek, the canoe tipped.  Al told me that the canoe was I was getting better a steering in every way, but the canoe seemed too floppy when we were riding behind the others.

Keith said he and Lee were drinking a sports drink called “Sustained Energy” and eating a nutritional supplement gel called “Hammer Gel” that worked better than anything else he has tried.