Monday, August 25, 2008

TACOS trip report: TACOS will be replaces with MACOS for today only

Once upon a time Seamus sent out an email to 456 people and the same two people as usual responded and everyone else was "busy." As it turns out, those people may not end up with Ebola or Malaria or Eastern Equine Encephalitis, but we will get to that later.


The few of you whom have taken your lives in your hands by riding in any sort of mechanized vehicle with Steve Li behind the controls know exactly what it feels like to think that you may die at any moment. Those of you who have not, DO NOT EVER GET IN A CAR WITH STEVE LI.


Since we got into Maine just after dusk on Friday night we needed to travel about an hour down windy one lane roads through the woods to get to the campsite. After just watching for about fifteen minutes I decided to question Steve about his use of high beams. His methodology is as follows. "I turn on the high beams before the corner to get a mental picture, then turn them off to go through the corner so I don't piss off the people in the houses on the corners or the cars coming the other way" I agree with his point of turning off your high beams when another car is coming at you, but WTF?!?!? to his logic on the trees/houses.

A. There was a house on a corner maybe twice on the whole trip

B. If they bought that house, they knew what they were getting into.

C. If we hit a tree we die.

D. Steve has poor day vision and NO NIGHT VISION and has refused to buy new glasses since 2005 when his old ones literally turned to dust.

E. He had been on the verge of falling asleep for the last hour and a half when we started into the woods.


side note #1 - clicking through songs on your iPod to keep yours self awake while flying down country roads, in the dark, flipping your lights on and off, with a kayak that is longer than your car tied to it is generally thought of as not a fantastic idea.

Side note #2 - at the end we missed the turn and had to turn around to go back to it, and Steve stuck his head out the window and said "where is the road?" WHILE LOOKING DIRECTLY AT IT


Camping that night was quite uneventful. There was a fishing pinball machine in the rec room that I found interesting, but not quite enough to play, and there was a rain shelter at the site that we laid out on and watched the stars for a bit.


THE RIVER: Paddling on Saturday was rather uneventful. It was simply a good day on the river. We passed a lot of really really really drunk people, and had some burgers and hot dogs for lunch. I wish we had taken a little more time to go swimming because the water was great and then sun was fantastic. We did 12.3 miles before finding a spot to camp that looked like it didn’t have too many mosquitoes. We were wrong. Dead wrong. I think that was the fastest I have ever seen a camp be set up or taken down in my life. After attempting to get a fire going to smoke out the buggers for 10 minutes I had about 2 dozen mosquito bites and said screw this and jumped into the tent with Cap and Steve. Other than running outside to relieve ourselves or grab a bag we left outside, none of us left the tent until 7am on Sunday. Spending 12 hours in a tent wasn’t as bad as it could have been. For example it Tong had been there he would have been bitching about it the whole time, rather than passing the time battling the few mosquitoes who did make it in like Steve decided to. I think his final tally was north of 200 kills. After cooking steak tips and rice on a stove in the tent rather than battling the little fuckers outside we had a few delicious beverages (bud light) and listened to music from my phone until Steve and I both passed out at different points and then Cap sent us to bed. I would like it noted for the record that they both decided that although I have a lot of terrible music on my iTunes, good stuff seemed to have made its way to my phone. There was no meow mix, and I think we have a better appreciation of John Williams work.


Despite the fact that we left a drybag with enough oatmeal, granola bars and bread to feed a small army at the campsite, that was the fastest/most efficient breakdown of a camp I have ever seen. I had a good cry about loosing my drybag last night, until I realized that if I still had it, I would probably also have another 274 mosquito bites. The river was prettymuch infested on Sunday, and the only chance of not being eaten alive we had was to keep the pace up and stay in the sun. If we even drifted near the edge of the shadows on either side of the mighty Saco River we were doomed. Although it felt like we were paddling at the speed of light on Sunday we only managed 3.8 mph, as opposed to our 3.3 on Saturday. It was enough to get us to dry, un-mosquito infested land by noonish.
When we finally left we headed to Old Orchard Beach for some swimming in the non-mosquito infested Atlantic ocean. It was glorious. A little windy and only about 75, but Glorious. Cap read her book on the shore, and Steve and I played in the waves. Steve decided that he would "just turn left, just remember to turn left" when we were bodysurfing, and surprisingly enough ran into a gaggle of 14 year old girls just to the left of us when we surfed in. He laughed. They left. I laughed.
Cap and Steve made a sand castle, and Steve got pooped on.
I napped.
We went to The Clambake and had a delicious seafood dinner.
We drove home, and got waved at by a number of small children.
Epilogue: How does fiction have an epilogue? See, I am using an epilogue, but this story is based in fact, so I can. Apparently Cap's novel about some dude writing letters to his wife, and then his kids finding them had an epilogue. It was supposed to be the last letter or something. It was even in a little envelope at the back of the book. And printed in fake handwriting. How do you have an epilogue in fiction?!?!? As Wikipedia tells me it is apparently OK, but I disagree. Finding out that Chuck Norris is currently suing NBC, claiming Law and Order are trademarked names for his left and right legs, is a fitting subject for an epilogue. Some fake dude, writing fake letters to his fake wife, is not.