Guides:
Jonathan "Skip" Lee
Pete "I'm the Devil" Eernisse
Mark Saurer
Heather Bolton
Kayaker:
Mike Marek
Mascot:
From a description I sent to a friend who wasn't there:
> > P.S. Rafting was fucking
incredible. Definitely a peak
> > experience of my life.
> That good huh? Wow. Was it the rafting or the company (or both?)
It was both. The first day of rafting was a short one, but we were all wiped out when we arrived anyhow. It definitely took me a while to get used to being on the river. The company was even better than I expected. The night before the trip, Skip (whose real name is Jonathan, and who only went by Skip at camp) called me and said, "I don't know how to tell you this, so I'm just going to say it...." At this point, I'm thinking, "Skip's car broke down in South Dakota between college and here and he's not going to be on the trip." But he said, "I don't think there's going to be any problem with you calling me Skip, because Pete Eernisse is working for Holiday and is on the trip!" Pete was a camper of mine as well, and the last time I'd seen him was when Skip and I managed to track him down in SLC five years ago. That was a huge and fantastic surprise.
I could either write a whole huge thing on how incredible it was, or I could sum up. Guess I'll start with the latter (I wrote about 22 pages to Stephanie yesterday, and just scratched the surface). It would have been a different trip without Pete and Skip, for certain (in part because I wouldn't have felt as comfortable or welcome hanging out with the guides, who really work their asses off), and I absolutely want Skip around next time I go (and Pete, too, if possible), but the guides were very cool. The food was incredible -- even the "alternative" selections for the three vegetarians. The river culture -- not just a way of life, but a philosophy, I think -- was seductive, and I definitely could see myself spending my summers on the river. Rafting was even more fun than I had anticipated. I thought I'd be scared and that it would diminish my enjoyment; but I was scared in exactly the right amount to make everything perfect. One boat did flip -- not mine -- but everyone ended up safe and fine, and everyone remained confident in the guides (who were amazing in a crisis). We had about one potential or actual "incident" a day, which the guides either anticipated and made a non-incident, or dealt with. I think I was moderately helpful as pseudo-staff in some of those cases.
I remembered a lot that I had forgotten, about myself mostly, and I learned some new stuff. I felt like kind of a flailer for a while, but ended up feeling fantastic. People complemented me on being a wonderful singer -- since I'm kind of self-conscious about my singing, I'm rather susceptible to complements...and to criticism, too, I suppose, but people hardly ever come up to say, "You know, I don't think you're as good a singer as you think you are." I feel really strong, in some ways (I took it as a complement when Pete told me that I was "fairly burly"), and I am beginning to see that this life I'm leading doesn't have to be entirely incompatible with outdoor-megan, but definitely comes into strong conflict that I need to try to resolve. I really enjoyed spending time with Pete and Skip, two people for whom I have really strong emotions -- something I've been missing of late: I don't have anyone around here who just makes me want to cry when I see them (other than Spike, of course).
General thoughts:
How's that for my abridged version?
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last modified: January 31, 1997.