Ray's 29th Annual Canoe Trip

My friend Ray and his buddies have been taking these canoe trips every Spring for 29 years now. Ray sent me this report of their adventure and I enjoyed it so much I asked if I could post it here. Since Ray is an occassional contributor to this blog, he agreed. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did! Ray lives in my hometown, St. Marys, Pennsylvania. His web site is Beimel Photographics.

Mike Werner stopped for me about 6:20PM. I was all ready, having everything packed. On the drive to the farmhouse outside of Ramey, a small town in southern Clearfield County, he told me about being at the Giant Arena in Hershey for the State Championship Class A Boy's Basketball Game, won by our high school alma mater, Elk County Catholic High School. The story was good and we got to the farmhouse in no time. We were the last ones to arrive. Since it was a very warm night for March 31, all the guys were standing out on the porch, some drinking beer, some drinking wine, all of them picking on us for being last. But the conversation, as always, was good. (Left: the group in front of the farmhouse. Steve, Mike, Brad, Dave, Ray, Chris, and Joe. For once, I am more colorful than Chris. This won't happen again. )

Things were a little different on the first night for this trip. Traditionally we drink much beer. This year, some of us drank some beer, more drank wine. Not counting the river beer, we hardly drank a case over the weekend. But we killed many bottles of wine. I don't know what this means except that the old Reuscher formula of B=90n where B is beer in ounces and n is the count of guys present. That was established in 1987 and slowly changed to B=78n and then ultimately became B=28n. Gathering around the kitchen where the wine bottles and snacks were, I proposed a toast to our old Scoutmaster, Gary Kraus. Without him I would not have met Joe and Tony and Mike and Dave and where would the trip be without them?
>Joe's father in law had given him a big catch of panfish so Dave battered them up and Joe fried them. In addition, Joe had a delicious macaroni shrimp salad and a tasty pulled pork barbecue.

After more conversation, lots of fish, and more wine, I showed slides from some of our trips in the past as well as some pictures from the days of the old Scout troop when Mike, Joe, and Dave were young. This was well received. So then it was more drinking wine on the porch. Some of the guys watched Master and Commander on TV. I know I fell asleep before the movie was over.

Saturday morning we got up later than usual and took our time getting started. Mike had brought bagels and sausage for breakfast to we all pitched into that as well as some of the cold fish from last night. We took a walk around the farm and then it was time to hit the river. This more leisurely approach was better than our more hurried times when we were camping and had to get to the campsite with enough daylight left to set up camp. We decided to do about 12 miles of river as opposed to the full 14.3 miles. This turned out to be a good plan. Joe, Dave, and I were left with the canoes while Brad, Chris, and Mike did the car switch. That evolution used to take 46 minutes, this time just 37. That gave us just enough time to use the duct tape to install beverage holders in all the canoes. Try as you might, you just can't find a canoe with a factory installed beer holder.

As soon as we got on the river we knew we were in for a long day. The water was low, as low as any of us can remember it. We hadn't gone 20 yards when we hit bottom for the first time. But Brad and I never had to get out of the canoe, managing to hump, bump, pole, and paddle our way through all the shallows. Some of the passages were only slightly wider than the canoe itself. When we got to the concrete covered pipe, we stopped and scouted, taking a good hard look at it before deciding what to do.
Mike and Dave and Brad and I led our boats past the obstacle but Chris and Joe decided to try to run it. The chute was narrow and had about three inches for a margin of error between the snag at the top and the big rock at the bottom. They got through without spilling but Joe confessed they did touch the rock in question. Had Brad and I tried that we would have been swimming for sure. Thus Chris further cemented his reputation for being the best canoeist among us. However, Brad and I seemed to be doing well at not getting stuck, for whatever that is worth. We ha to do a lot of that paddling stuff, right then left and back to right again in just three canoe lengths. It was that kind of river all the way.

After the pipe it was just a matter of looking closely for rocks and doing a lot of paddling and maneuvering to avoid hitting them. When the river is between 3½ and 5 feet, it is a matter of just getting out in the middle and running with it. At 2.2 feet, it requires close attention from all hands to avoid hitting something. A moment's inattention and you were heading for a wash over that might just flip you. We were good though and no one tipped. We ate lunch under a railroad bridge and had 4 trains go over us while we ate. It was a very busy day on the Norfolk Southern (former Pennsylvania Railroad) New York to Chicago mainline. Of course, we couldn't help but notice that most of the containers on the van trains we saw were lettered for Maersk, Cosco, Hyundai, and other foreign firms.

As we passed through the little village of Spruce Creek we noticed that the no trespassing signs that once hung over the river were gone. There were a lot of fly fishermen out that day. And many more Canada geese than we remembered seeing before. And kingfishers. I love to see kingfishers flitting about. We stopped at our old campsite that we used for 18 years from 1987 to 2004. Someone had been there and left the place a big mess, abandoning gear and trash, pretty much ruining the site. Chris said "It feels like we've been violated." Given the flood washing away everything but the fireplace rocks and the trash, we pretty much decided that we won't camp there anymore. We always left the place looking like we hadn't been there and it was disgusting to see what others had done to it.

From there it was an easy paddle out to the trucks. With the water that low, even in the "lake" above Barree, there were rocks close enough to the surface to get you. Brad looked up to talk to Chris a moment and we hit one and got slammed 45° off course in an instant. We didn't go over but it was a hell of a surprise to hit that. With having nothing but a lunch cooler, beer buckets, and emergency gear to unpack, it didn't take long to get the canoes back on the trucks and thus back to the farmhouse.

We changed out of our flamboyant or funny looking river clothes and picked up the wine tasting where it left off. The Cinch tournament started up and the snacks were hit heavily again. Brad and I won a game which ended with me getting a shooter, a very rare occurrence. I had to get into the kitchen to start dinner. I made a couple of stuffed roast chickens, brown rice, and glazed carrots. This went over well too.

After dinner the other guys did the cleaning up which I appreciate as I am a sloppy cook. But good though. Then it was fireworks time. Brad and Chris had some good stuff, including double shot mortars.

By this time, it was getting late but there was still time to watch the Blue Collar Comedy Tour concert movie. Perhaps it was the company, perhaps the wine, but whatever there was much laughter to the point where Brad had to quote Tuck O'Brien's old line of "my brigs are rope." In English that is "my ribs are broke" from too much laughter. And then to bed. I got into my sleeping bag and rolled over and didn't move again until I heard guys in the kitchen making coffee. Brad cooked up his usual excellent omelets, this time using eggs provided by Steve Gotwols' chickens. It was a warm sunny morning and after breakfast we sat out in the sun and talked and just enjoyed. Then cleanup, the group photo, and home. We have two group shots this time as Steve had some back trouble and thus didn't canoe.

This is the group at the end of the canoeing. Rolling Rock in 7 ounce bottles, the official river beer of the Travelling Circus.
So that's the story on this year's canoe trip. Thanks to Joe for the use of the farm, to everybody for wine, beer, and food and an especially fun time hanging out with a great bunch of guys.