A River too Far

1--A river too far... I was in my basement, contemplating where the wet spot was coming from, and whether it smelled badly or not. It was a tough call. It is, after all, a basement, and smells go with the territory. I'd gotten as far in my meditations as thinking it might be more fun to work on income taxes, but being summer, taxes were admittedly less pressing than leaks (although there was always a fair chance I was way overdue for the April deadline...)
    Life is about more than leaks and taxes, I thought. I went outside to check my cell phone for messages. The sky was deep blue. The robins were twittering in the cumquats, or whatever the bush was by the garden. No messages on the phone.
    My wife was gone for two weeks to Montana to visit her mother. If there were any messages from her, they would either remind me of chores I should be doing, or recount the latest quirks of my mother-in-law's housekeeping habits.
    We were recent empty-nesters, which felt a bit like a second adolescence, but with fewer hormones. Aside from the inevitable routines of work and homelife, there had to be something else. I just hadn't figured out what it was yet.
    So I checked my email for the tenth time that day. I'd sunk low enough to be reading some of the spam. I had considered a system of buying stocks mentioned in the emails if the background was pink, while avoiding the blue ones. Or maybe only buying them only if "Nigeria" appeared somewhere in the email.
    Then I saw the email from Zip River Adventures. It identified me by name, which it said was proof that I had signed up to receive this valuable information. The Zip River has the whitest water in Idaho. Other rivers in Idaho receive picturesque nicknames like Hell's Canyon, or The River of No Return. The Zip River needed no nicknames. No sane kayaker would attempt it.   The email included a photo of a crazy kayaker shooting down a waterfalls on the Zip. The fool resembled my friend Larry. Ack! I had to be sure... I opened the picture in my Paint program and zoomed in on the figure. It was Larry. Now I understood. Doom lay before me like the salmon heading to spawn...

Larry was a serial sports enthusiast. There was no law against that, but there should have been. Although he was an equal opportunity enthusiast, sports requiring partners prompted him to drag me into his latest sports craze. Being naturally unathletic, I didn't mind disc golf or bowling too much. But after he subscribed to an extreme sports magazine, I tried to avoid him like the dentist. It wasn't all that hard, since Larry, although much more an athlete than me, had a high enough Klutz Factor that his enthusiasm for a sport would end with a stay in the hospital, so he wasn't generally around long enough to sequester me.
    My musings were interrupted by the phone. I was off-balanced sufficiently that I didn't check the caller ID.
    "Uh, Larry! How's it going! Catching a lot of air on your mountain bike?" I said, hoping to steer him from uncharted waters...
    "My bike is 3/4's of the way down Mount Baldy. From what I could see of it from the tree, it wasn't worth trying to climb down to get it. And the chopper pilot said there was no way he was going to let me try to get the bike, what with the broken ribs and all. So that's over... But did you get the email from the ZRA?"

I have frequent dreams that I am floating down a river, often getting caught in a rapids, or going over a dam. Generally then I wake up, go use the bathroom, and my dreams become much dryer. I've had enough experience canoeing flat midwestern rivers to be totally leary of the Zip River.

"Say, Larry, ZRA. Aren't they the Druid Fascist Terrorists?" Rather than listen to his own enraptured description of the email for 5 minutes, I admitted I'd read it. After that it was only a matter of signing a few insurance waivers and credit card vouchers, and we were on our way.

We left our cars at Buck's Tavern, at the confluence of the Big Zip and Little Zip rivers. Buck's Tavern had partially burned down some years previously, but some of the patrons hadn't noticed, and were staring at us out of the holes in the side of the building. Or maybe they were staring at the ZRA Express, which was pulling into the lot in a cloud of smoke and dust.

    Larry said, "The last time I went we only did the Little Zip river. I had to bribe the guides to let us do the Big Zip, and even then two of them quit the company rather than accompany us. I told them you were made of sterner stuff..."
    "You're absolutely right about that. But I don't want to steal your glory, Larry. To show you how tough I am, I'll brave Buck's Tavern while you take the first run.
    Just then the chief tour guide emerged from the old school bus which was the ZRA Express.
    "Hallo. I am Heinrich, your float guide. Today is a glorious day. May we all live to see the sun set! This will happen only if you follow orders precisely. If I say rodeo roll, you say Yeehaw and do it. I do not like questions.   It's a long drive to the put in spot, so get on the autobus now!"
    Larry and I got on the bus. There were no others.   Heinrich came after a few minutes. "I was just putting on the chains for the snow fields. All is in readiness."
    We started up the road, which constantly was switching directions except for upwards, with only occasionally a glimpse of the froth we were supposed to navigate sometime in the future.
    Heinrich called back to us, "If you brought your video camera, now is the time to use it, to record your martyrdom for posterity. There will be no opportunity for cameras when we are on the felsen, I mean river..."
    "Say, Larry, he said no questions. So I have to ask you, what's a rodeo roll, and why does he think I should know how to do it?"
    "Phil, he wasn't going to let you on this trip unless you were an expert kayaker, so I had to pad your credentials a little."
    "Like you mean he thinks I've done this before?"
    "Like he thinks you're a professional..."
    "Like, Larry, you're out of your mind!"
    "Phil, I'd never tried kayaking before the Little Zip trip, and it was a gas. I know you're a quick study. Think of all the sports you picked up instantly."
    "I've still got some confusion about Cricket, Larry."
    "Look, Phil, all you've got to do is keep going down the river, and steer away from the rocks. You've got gravity on your side... You can even stay facing forward, if you feel nervous about it..."
We finally reached the snow fields. The bus careened about but kept going higher. I could see the tree line far below. The bus came to a halt.
    Heinrich started handing out gear. "Put on these crampons on your boots now, so you do not start your descent too soon. Remember to remove them before entering the kayak, or you may make the little holes in the bottom of the boat, which would be bad for all of us. I don't like to lose kayaks..."
    "Umm, Heinrich, this isn't a question but an observation. There's nothing but snow here--no river..."
    "That's correct. This will be the first time descent of the Big Zip from its source exactly here on the glacier. Due to the slope, it is theoretically possible to start sliding down on the snow, and hit the river as it emerges from the bottom of the glacier. That will also be one for the record books. A glorious day!" He started humming a military march as he removed the kayaks from the back of the bus.
    Larry said, " I wonder how the bus will get back down. The other day there was a driver."
    Heinrich replied, "The driver refused to drive. If we make it to Buck's Tavern, Buck has promised to carry us back up to the bus on the shoulders of some of his faithful patrons."
    I said, "That's awfully generous of him."
    Heinrich said, "I think for him it is a business proposition. He has been taking bets against our success, and if we make it he stands to win a packet..."
    "So he thinks we can do it," Larry said optimistically.
    "Buck likes to play the long shots. He always picks the Cubs for the World Series..."

    I remembered, before entering into the kayak, to remove the crampons. It was, after all, practically the only instruction besides calling out "Yeehaw" when doing a rodeo turn. After that, everything is pretty blurry. I remember thinking, as I shot down the glacier towards the rivulet, at least there are no trees up here to hit... Then I hit a rock embedded in the glacier, and I had to concentrate on where my paddle, arms, and brain were... Just before hitting the water, I caught my first air, as there was a large dropoff where the snowfield turned to a little torrent.
    Then I was on the chalky river, facing up looking into the menacing sky, menacing glacier--everything was menacing. Larry was a small dot behind me, and Heinrich was standing by the bus and waving his hat. All of this alerted me to the fact that I was heading downstream swiftly going backwards... So I began to use my paddle to turn around. I was helped by the many small rocks which attempted to make me into a floating pinball, but by so doing occasionally pointed me down hill.
    Ahead was a placid mountain lake. I slid into it, yelling Yeehaw!

I floated gently, surveying the mountainside behind me for any sign of Larry or Heinrich... Finally Larry splashed into the lake as well, and we compared journeys. His was as terrifying as mine had been. The lake was deserted, or we would have ditched the kayaks and commandeered some hiker's map to walk out. As it was, the light seemed to be getting dimmer, and the storm clouds were gathering, so we decided to find our way out of the lake. The possible storm made even Buck's Tavern look appealing. The way out of the lake was clear green water through stunted fir trees, and a easy as a breeze after our first descent.
Larry called to me, "If we make it to Buck's before the storm breaks, we have it made..." Then the wind picked up so that conversation was impossible, and the noise was even sufficient to drown out (so to speak) the sound of the first falls we were approaching. Larry had gotten ahead of me in the lulling leadup to the falls, so I watched him vanish suddenly, and only had time to scream intensely before being dragged over the falls after him. I think I practiced all the the rolls in the the books, some of them going down the falls, then others in the pool at the bottom, while being pummeled by the falls. I bumped into Larry's kayak several times before realizing Larry wasn't in it... Then I grabbed it and headed to shore, calling out for my lost friend...

    It was then that the storm broke, with lightning and thunder in perfect proportion to the wind and the rain. It was a good thing I was wet already, or I'd really have lost all hope... As it was, once you're wet, what's a little more wet?   At the shore, I tied up the kayaks to a bush and tried to figure if Larry could have survived the plunge over the falls without his kayak.
    I heard a rustling noise behind me. I fully expected it to be a bear, since it was that sort of day, but instead it was Larry.
    "I'm so glad you got my kayak for me, Phil. I pulled in to shore to take a leak, and the next thing I know it was out there bouncing around with you. Heck of a storm, isn't it?"
    The thunder then made chitchat impossible, but finally the storm passed, and we stared glumly at the rising river.
    "I was looking around for a way to hike out while I was in the bushes, and the canyon walls are sheer along here. The only way out is down. It can't be worse than what we went through already."
    I was going to argue the point, when a bear came tumbling down the falls, and started towards us, looking very unhappy.

    It was nice to be on the river again... Life is lovely on a kayak...
    Except for the moment when I broke my paddle in half (see photo above, taken by Heinrich), the rest of the trip was relatively uneventful. And that was really the problem. We should have come upon Buck's Tavern by now, yet that event steadfastly refused to happen. Although there was no tavern, we did finally come to a bridge, lit with headlights in the growing dusk.
And there on the bridge was Heinrich!
    "You fools, you did not wait for my instructions. You did not return when I yelled and waved my hat. You spoiled the perfect day for the perfect paddle!"
    I said, "Heinrich, this is too much! Here we risked death, came down the source of the Big Zip River, making history, while you chickened out and didn't even make it to the lake... You've got a lot of gall!"
    "Pah, you did not wait for proper placement of the kayaks, and went down the wrong drainage. You went down Pussy Willow Creek, a class one float for beginners."
    "Oh yeah?" said Larry. "What about the falls?"
    "There are no falls on Pussy Willow Creek. At one point the creek starts down a slight rapids, where the children like to put in their inner tubes. Perhaps that is what you encountered.
    "I will return you to your cars at Buck's Tavern. But I advise you to get out of the bus before our arrival, and try to quietly start your cars. Buck is greatly disappointed in you..."

Strange Interlude:
A nightmare

I was supposed to play music for a dance at a school in a little town I used to live in. So I went to find the musicians I would play with. I noticed it was 11 pm and we hadn't started yet. There were people tripping around drunk outside the entrance. I went to tune, and they asked if I played in standard tuning. When I said yes, they groaned and said I'd have to tune to them. So I handed my guitar to one of them and told them to tune it. Then I got separated from them, and started to run through the labrinthine school to get back to the band. I was running across chairs in an empty auditorium, jumping down stairwells, trying to get back. Then I woke up. Another gig I'm glad I missed.

Use this chart to find the next of the cartoons (first 47 entries) or the stories (starting with 1 A River Too Far 5 rows below week 8)

Cartoon: Week 1	Week 2	Week 3	Week 4	Week5	Week 6	Week 7	Week 8	Week 9	Week 10
Week 11	Week 12	Week 13	Week 14	Week 15	Week 16	Week 17	Week 18	Week 19	Week 20
Week 21	Week 22	Week 23	Week 24	Week 25	Week 26	Week 27	Week 28	Week 29	Week 30
Week 31	Week 32	Week 33	Week 34	Week 35	Week 36	Week 37	Week 38	Week 39	Week 40
Week 41	Week 42	Week 43	Week 44	Week 45	Week 46	Week 47 (cartoon ends)	1. A River Too Far	2.The Reunion	3.The Daily Grind
4 The New Car and Treasure	5. The Big Bambootees	6. The old Switcheroo	7. The Ravine Runner	8. The Fabulous Folk Festival	9. Druid Fluid	10. Goats of Christmas Past	11. The Secret Six	12. The Great White Hunters	13. The Old School
14 Lost in the City	15 Schlemiel Possession	16 What's in a name?	17 The Curse of Bently Manor	18 Shortbottom Possessed	19 The Lost Treasure of Iraq	20 Phil Steen for President!	21 Phil Steen for Rehab	22 The Adventures of Handiman and Fiberwoman	23 Quantum Uncertainty revealed
24 Pirates of the Puget Sound	25 Building a platform, plank by plank	26 The Quest for meaning	27 Larry and Phil to The Rescue	28 Hurrah for the Reds, Whites, and Blues	29 Phil loses his mind	30 Earth Strikes Back	31 Harry the Potter	32 How I spent my summer vacation	33 Help I am trapped in the Present!
34 Help I am trapped in the future	35 The Nose of Death	36 Infectious Laughter	37 Election Update

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