I had my first vacation in several years, it was great. The boyfriend and I went to the Illinois River with his friends to camp and float. I float this river every year, but I don't think I have ever camped out there. Unless you count spending a night or two in some of the cabins, but those have air conditioning and bathrooms so I really don't.
Honestly, I didn't really want to go. We had had a few disagreements over the whole idea of the trip. As crazy as I can be, I don't really feel comfortable around large groups of people I don't know if they're drinking much. Let's face it, it's the river. There will be copious amounts of alcohol consumed. Also, I can be very easily irritated when I'm drinking. I didn't want to get mad at people I didn't know for some stupid reason or get them mad at me.
I am SO glad I went, however. I've never met a better group of people in my life. And I've never had more adventures in four days than I did this last weekend.
We were supposed to have a campsite with electricity so we would have lights for beer pong and be able to plug in our speakers. When we arrived, however, we had been given one without access to electric. We talked the office into letting us move to a site where we could bum some off another site. Then we figured out the tent Dad let us borrow was missing all the poles, and my whole family was in Houston so we couldn't just drive the 30 minutes back to their place to get another one. Thankfully, someone had brought an extra tent. Other than that, the first night was pretty uneventful. My friends B and Joe came out to drink with us for awhile. I got pretty drunk and ended up opening up quicker than normal. The boyfriend and I ended up having to sleep on the ground the first night because we forgot to blow up the air mattress.
We floated the river Saturday. We were supposed to go the whole 12 miles, however, when you run out of food, beer, cigarettes, and water for an entire group of 15-20 drunk people you tend to abandon that mission. I ended the trip with a few sets of beads (imagine that!), some scrapes and bruises from being pushed out of the rafts a few times, and a major sunburn. It didn't help that we all ended up drunk before we even got on the bus to get to the river. Nothing like ended up hungover in the cruel Oklahoma sun. It took us 7 hours to go 6 miles, which is ridiculous. We were all playing musical rafts, shooting strangers with water guns, bribing girls to show their boobs for beads. It was a lot of fun.
That night, we had a transvestite show up at our camp. You guys know me and know I have no problem with anyone's sexuality, but this "girl" had issues. One of the guys brought her over, I assume with the intent to sleep with her, and realized when she stepped under our spotlight that she had at one point in her life been a man. If the group wasn't made up of mostly redneck-ish people, I'm sure it would have been fine, but we couldn't help but snicker. She didn't help matters much by being trashed and passing out in the middle of our campsite.
The next day we headed back out to the river. Very few of us drank that morning. Boyfriend and I ended up on a raft with another couple the entire trip, which was actually quite fun. We freaked out when we saw giant catfish in the river and were bummed when we realized the fishing gear was back at camp. So we rigged up a redneck fishing pole using the straps from the coozies you hang around your neck and a keyring from one of the dry boxes. We used pieces of sandwiches for bait. Obviously we didn't catch anything, but we had a lot of fun and got some great laughs from other people. The boys decided jumping at the fish from the raft was a much better way to go. It was quite comical. Again, we bailed at the 6 mile point. This time we had enough of everything, we were just way too exhausted from the day before to continue. And the wind was blowing so hard the wrong direction it would push you upstream at times.
Sunday night was pretty eventful. We got back to camp as the cops were pulling into the area. Apparently some guy was beat up and put in his raft to continue downstream. It was supposedly a gang fight (considering how close it is to Muskogee it's possible), however, that was never confirmed. We were visited by some very interesting gentlemen later. They were in kilts and tin foil hats. They asked us to sign their noodle. Even later, B and I were drunkenly two-stepping and from nowhere we here "I'll teach you to play country music!" One of the guys had been in his tent with a girl we began to refer to as Fluffy White Chick from the next site over, and he came out butt ass naked. The few of us that were still awake ended up on the other side of the fire from him as he attempted to piss in the fire. Then he approached us asking "Who wants a hug?" Fuckers pushed the smallest person out front... We ended the night "singing" metal and discussing what groups we like and hate.
Monday we all headed out. Boyfriend and I spent the night at my parents' house because we were exhausted and didn't want to fight post holiday traffic. It was definitely the best weekend I've had in a long time!
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| B and I on night 1 |
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| The boyfriend and I on our first vacation together!! Love him! |
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| Tin foil kilt men with their noodle |
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| Beer pong! |
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| I think we're freakin adorable, just sayin. |
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| No clue what Joe and I are doing here, but it must have been hilarious to the guy behind me. |
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| Boyfriend and one of the guys playing beer pong |
Love!!
