Crochet Me Crazy

We've been here for 2 1/2 months and still hadn't floated the river. Yesterday, was my day off so we decided to go ahead and float the river as a family. We had been told it was a 6 hour float from the bridge to Concan. So...we parked the car at the destination and then drove back in the truck to start floating and got in the river behind our RV which would make the float a good distance closer than if we started at the bridge. We had a good time for the first half. Then, I started getting a little bit cold and concerned. I had no idea what time it was but it seemed to be getting late. I have never been that far down the river and we went through a lot of very deep parts that you had to pretty much paddle or swim for very long distances. The banks were either private property or completely over-grown. We went on and on and on....the kids were still plodding along and having a great time. Then, Michael noticed how low the sun was and started getting concerned...uh-oh! We started getting out and trying to walk on the bank some to go faster. We are walking through over grown jungle like stuff getting all scratched up and the river was getting kinda yucky in parts. We got to where we couldn't pass through so we had to jump back in the river a couple of times in yucky partys and swim again. We're starting to get colder and colder as the sun goes down and there's no site of the bridge we parked at. All we know is that when its dark out here, its very, very dark out here and we do not want to be in the river when it is!! Finally, we see people and a bridge. We get to the low water bridge and Jeff says this isn't the bridge. He knows where we are but he's not sure how much further it is to the bridge we parked at on the river. So we decided that the kids and I will sit here with the tubes and Jeff is going to hike to the car on the road and come back and get us. He takes off and we sit and wait. The sun is going down...we're waiting....a few cars drive by.... we wait.....less cars are driving by....it's getting darker.....we wait.....Michael wants to go scout out the entrance to the RV park across the road before we can't see our hands in front of our faces...I told him No, daddy is going to come get us no matter what. It's dark now....we wait...we're sitting on the side of the road in our wet bathing suits freezing to death...we wait...Alison is getting frantic and starting to pray so I'm just telling her not to worry, it must have just been a farther distance than he thought....I'm starting to worry because I can't figure out why its taking him so long and hoping nothing happened to him. I know that once he gets to the car, it would only take a matter of minutes for him to get to us. Finally, we see car lights and a car zooming down the road....I hear the horn...it's him! LOL ... He has the car all warmed up with the heater on. He tells us that he had been running as long as he could...then walking...then running the whole time. Two times things tried to chase him and eat him... ha, ha...well, maybe not eat him but he said two times things snorted from the bushes and scared him to death because whatever it was didn't run away when he snorted back! LOL
He wanted to drive with us and show us where he had been and we measured the distance in the car. He had run/walked about 5 miles back to the car. Poor Jeff has huge blisters on his feet. He was wearing water shoes.
Needless, to say...that was a really dumb thing to do. I don't believe what we've been told about the from the bridge to Concan being 6 hours. We're going to start from where we left off one day and see how much longer it would have been if we had stayed on the river....and start much earlier in the day, of course, just in case. When drove back by where we had parked our car at about 10PM there was still another lonely car sitting there that had been there earlier in the day when we dropped our car off. Wonder what happened to those people?
It was a perfect day for our neighbor to cook us dinner. Our neighbor had told us earlier in the day she was going to have some BBQ for us last night and to come on over when we got back. We knocked on her door when we got home late because her lights were still on and to apologize for getting home so late. We were famished. She loaded us up with BBQ ribs, green beans and salad. She couldn't have picked a better day! :)

Well, I'm off to work in the visitor's center today. I have it all to myself today afor the first time. Everyone else is still sleeping!