The Best Worst Trip Ever

"With a calm breath I say, 'We gots to float'/Throw Lil' Cease the keys to the boat..."

My friend "M.C." once told me recently he wanted to compile a list of the craziest and funniest things that have ever happened to us, and maybe even make a small book out of them. Now, while the book would surely lose money, since it would take all of our resources to spell-check his work, it still is a great idea, for the sheer volume of f'ed-up things that happen to us is fairly startling. Anyway, if we did go ahead with this idea, this would be one of my first submissions. I hope I do it justice.

My high school friends and I grew apart really fast after we left town and all went to different colleges. Because I am the most nostalgic and needy of the group, I proposed a yearly trip so we could all re-acquaint with each other. The most ambitious trip I had ever planned was the subject of this post -- a 3 day, 2 night Canoe/Camping venture through Central Florida during Spring Break. The participants on this trip were as follows: M.C., of drunk-dialing fame, "Cue," at the time a neurotic engineering student and co-planner of the trip, "Leminem," at the time an unassuming, quiet college kid just coming out of his shell, and yours truly. Although we had several pre-trip follies, including M.C. running out of money, almost grounding our trip, closed rural roads requiring a detour, and a severe housewife-like overpacking by all four of us, we managed to arrive at our destination and get into the river only an hour or two behind schedule.

The real fun began after we left civilization behind. It started out okay, just like your average horror movie -- 4 kids drinking heavily, busting each other's balls, and being carefree. A few hours later, fatigue settling in, we realized we had several problems: 1) it started to rain, despite our canoe rental place assuring me that "it does not look like it is going to rain for the entire week." 2) there was very little public land for camping, despite our canoe rental place assuring us that "unlike the Suwannee River, most of the land along the Santa Fe river is public." In fact, the count was something like "No Trespassing" Signs: 140; Drunk, Easy River Chicks: 0, a reverse of what we had hoped for. Finally, we found some abandoned, unmarked, uninhabited land just before sunset, and set up camp. We began a campfire, and cooked the most perishable food first. Now, about half an hour later, some crazy hick appears on the land sitting on other side of the river and begins yelling at us. At first, we have no idea he is even talking to us, hoping he is just sacrificing himself to the Rain Gods, but eventually Leminem and I canoe over to see what the fuss is about. Crazy-Hick-Man performed a few functions:

1) CHM informed us that the land we were camping on was private. CHM knew this because the owners, who bear no relation to CHM, apparently let CHM squat on their land to ward off "trouble."
2) CHM, possessing such great detective powers as he does, knew we were on that land because he had the cunning to spot our campfire, which we "did not hide too well." We informed him that we thought the land was public, and hence, as 4 near-drunk college kids, had no desire to conceal ourselves. Nonetheless, CHM did not withdraw his compliment of himself.
3) The real owners of the land were on their way.
4) After explaining to CHM that the canoe outpost told us that the land in this area was "almost all public," CHM did not believe us. We showed CHM the map where this area of land was circled by the canoe outpost for camping. CHM, in his role as enforcer, confiscated our map.
5) After all of his enforcing, CHM told us, "if you keep the fire down, and promise to be real quiet, they might let you stay."

A few minutes after we went back to the campsite, the owners, a crazy fat woman and her silent husband, showed up. After chastising us and the canoe outpost for several minutes, they demanded we leave their land. The reason? We could have "burned down their whole property" with our campfire and that we were "violating a fire ban in the area." Of course, what CFW had neglected to realize, was that a) it had just rained making a forest conflagration near impossible, b) we had our campfire controlled, in a small underground pit, with a partial lid on it, and c) obviously, if it took Crazy Hick Man all of his detective powers to spot the smoke from the fire, it couldn’t have been that big. We apologized to CFW and explained how the canoe outpost told us this was likely public land, that it was uninhabited, that there was no sign indicating ownership, and that the fire had been out for a while. Then, CFW attempted to confiscate our other map to use against the canoe outpost which, according to her "will do anything to get your money." Cue, realizing the ridiculousness meter had just hid redline, told her we were keeping the map. Of course, such Good Samaritans as CFW, CHM, and silent bob told us we had to leave immediately, despite the fact that it was almost totally dark out. To make us feel better, she added "its only 45 minutes to the public bridge." Thanks, Lady.

We encountered several more problems attempting to reach this mythical bridge in the dark. First, Cue slipped and hurt his knee on CFW's property, hurting his paddling ability. M.C. has also hurt his ribs or something. Furthermore, Leminem, not so renowned for his capacity for deep-thought at the time, forgot the posts to his tent. This meant that we were hauling 10-20 extra pounds of tent, spikes, and apparatus for a tent that we would not be able to raise off the ground. So, if we ever got to this mythical bridge, we would have to squeeze 4 adult males into a 3 person tent. Finally, we all assumed that CFW was telling the truth and that we were not allowed to even have a campfire, thus making all our frozen burgers and dogs worthless.

Finally, we got to the bridge and set up camp. The ground was so hard that our literal tent-pitching options were to sleep over a) a rock (concrete) or b) a hard place. To make things worse, our diet for the next two days would consist of beer, Pringles, mayo sandwiches, and cold oatmeal, but we tried to make the most of it. Tired and pissed, we were all about to go to sleep when we heard voices. M.C., who during a camping trip once handed me a fork to ward off "wild animals," grabbed his three-decades-old machete and prepared for battle. But what we encountered was much worse than wild animals or a criminal element. Much worse.

This night, trouble took the form of five drunk, ugly, stupid hick teenagers who had been sitting under this bridge all day with a case of beer. This posse was made up of two girls and three guys, and they could barely drag a sentence together. Among this motley crew was "Red," a chubby, odd fellow, and Elaine, a chubby, highly intoxicated girl who was lusted after by all three men in the group. As it turns out, the Hicks took quite a liking to us and wanted to "party" with us that night (I don’t really know how sitting under a rural bridge can constitute a party, but we didn't fight it). What turned us into friends? Apparently, I had passed Red's coolness test by having several "Boone's Farm" malt liquor bottles in my cooler. After offering him some, we were golden.

Now, I swear to God, I could blog for days about what all we talked about that night, but in the interests of brevity and sanity, and in the hope of keeping some of these repressed memories repressed, here are the highlights:

1) Red was glad they found us because they were "almost out of beer."
2) Red informed us that the Santa Fe River was much better than the Suwannee River, because the Suwannee River is "the color of your diarrhea."
3) Elaine was very easy.
4) Hick Boy #2 had just engaged in a sexual act with Elaine. We know this because Hick Boy #2 allowed Red to "smell his fingers." After this, Red informed the group that "That's some gooood p*ssy!"
5) Red was trying to get Hick Boy #2 to get Elaine to come over to his house after Hick Boy #2 was done with her.
6) Hick Boy #3 comes to Orlando a lot and would love to hang out with Cue and his friends. He then asked for the phone number to Cue's frat house. Cue, sensing that the Ridiculousness meter was almost at self-destruct level, gave Hick Boy #3 a fake phone number.

The following day we woke up, thankfully alone (the hicks had left after two hours or so), and all had backaches. I gave Cue and M.C. some tylenol and we continued on. We came across a local hero -- a seemingly crazy man who built himself a treehouse on public land, wore a leopard-print one-piece loincloth all day, and lived off the government, occasionally convincing the local park rangers to bring him cigarettes. We chatted with him for a while and found out that he allows campers on his site, but only if "there is at least one girl in the party." The gist of it was this guy was not crazy at all. He had a good thing going living off the government, and had even wired a phone line and electricity into his treehouse. Locals put him up during bad storms, and he had become a good attraction for the area. Now, on any other day this experience would still be blog-worthy, but not this day. We took several pictures with him and moved on.

Later that day, the guys and I were party to something that almost broke us apart forever. It is now, and forever will be, known only as, "The Paddle-Throwing Incident." Now, as a prelude to this part of the story, let me remind you how our mood was by this time. Our only reliable and non-gross source of calories were beer. We all had backaches. Cue and M.C. were both injured, with M.C. barely able to paddle on one side, and Cue finding it hard to paddle on the other. Leminem forgot the most important part of his tent other than the tent. I had picked both this river and this canoe outpost. To make matters worse, we were sunburned and fatigued. M.C. was in charge of bringing the sunscreen, but to my amazement brought non-waterproof sunscreen. After I grilled him about it, he attempted to justify his choice by saying "it was a gift from [my girlfriend]." Perplexed, we paddled on. At the time of the incident, Leminem and I had gotten ahead of M.C. and Cue, and Cue was getting on M.C.'s case for always paddling on one side of the boat. I was getting on M.C.'s case for the sunscreen. You combine all of these factors, and tempers are going to ignite faster than a controlled substance at a metal concert.

Then, it finally happened. M.C. had stopped again to rest his hurting side and re-apply sunscreen again, and Cue got angry at him. Leminem and I were peeved because we had to stop again, and so we all got on M.C.'s case. Then, M.C. just lost it. He took his paddle and chucked it in my direction, coming fairly close to hitting me (according to Cue). Then, Cue lost it. He berated M.C. so loud that I think he scared every snake in the area away, because we didn't see any for hours. Leminem and I turned the boat around thinking that a fight was a'comin, but fortunately, they squashed it. Then, after we all caught our collective breath, we realized there was another problem -- we were canoeing upstream, and M.C.'s paddle had gotten behind us during the shouting match. This was made worse by the fact that Cue's boat now only had one paddle to use to catch up to it with. After a minute or two of harsh paddling, they were finally able to grab it, just before things got really hairy.

Now, I know this story sounds hard on M.C., so let me just add the disclaimer that we were probably on his case too much, and that we were all about to explode. And, to his credit, M.C. turned all of that anger into elbow grease. After Cue let him have his paddle back, M.C. let out a huge grunt and began paddling like an 18th century schoolteacher. He spoke zero words for an hour and a half, grunting like a caveman as he and Cue sped past us to our next public bridge. When we caught up to them, M.C.'s knuckles were white, and Cue was speechless. We set up camp, and after one more round of cold oatmeal, beer, and mayo sandwiches, we made up for good, stronger than ever.

After getting to the bridge, we split up and searched for a payphone. M.C. and I went together to split up him and Cue. After hiking for over a mile, we found a payphone and called the canoe outpost. Those bastards were about to leave for the night, and the low-level employee who answered informed me that he did not have the authority to pick us up that night and give us a refund for the next day. I changed our pick up time to early the next morning instead of the next evening, and we schlepped it back to camp. That night, we played a memorable round of "never have I ever" (it was too windy and dark to play a card game) and fell asleep packed like sardines in one tent. Little did we know the legendary story that this trip would become over the years.

Epilogue:
The following day, after making it back to civilization, we complained to the canoe outpost owner about our experience. He did not offer us our money back, and we were too weirded-out and tired to demand it. After the drive home, Cue, Leminem, and I celebrated by going to Sonny's BBQ and hitting up that All-You-Can-Eat-Beef special. A week later, Cue and I sent complaints to the Better Business Bureau, citing the canoe outpost's lies about the weather, the true state of ownership of the property around the river, the fire-ban, the refusal to give us our refund, our spoiled food, and several other things. As it turns out after we got their reply, Crazy Fat Woman totally lied (or was misinformed) about the fire-ban. Ironically, we wasted all of that food for nothing. However, the canoe outpost compromised with us, returing the money for the lost food, offering us a free day of canoeing on any non-holiday weekend, but NOT giving in on the refund (isn't that bassackwards? Shouldn't it have been the other way around?). We ended up getting a check in the mail but not the free passes. We considered it a victory, because it's not like we were going to ever go back there, anyway.

The moral of the story? There are several: 1) You can get a lot further in life than I had heretofore thought with a leopard-print loincloth and a dream; 2) Always carry a bottle of Boone's Farm when you travel; and 3) No matter what you do, never, ever, ever do business with the Santa Fe Canoe Outpost.