This weekend was my annual camping trip with the Gianellas and Pete’s brother’s friends down in Round Spring, MO. I’ve been looking forward to the trip since the Sunday morning I left last year and have been looking forward to the next one since Yesterday. Just a great time in some beautiful woods.
I was down there an extra day this year and listened to the Thursday game of the series against the Rockies on the drive down, losing reception permanently not far outside of Salem, MO. The Cardinals were down 2-1 and Wonderbrad had gotten into some jams, so I expected a lot of work from the bullpen. Arrived at the campsite, cracked open an icy-cold Budweiser and had my tent up and settled fifteen minutes later. Good times ensued, a pork steak was grilled, and I went to bed too lit up to be annoyed by the whippoorwill in the trees on the opposite riverbank. He woke me up early the next morning and I donned swimming trunks to wash away the cobwebs with a nice 7am swim in fast-flowing, 60-degree water. That gets your blood flowing.
We packed coolers into the car for a drive to Eminence, where a school bus would drop us up fourteen miles with our canoes on the Jack’s Fork River. Unfortunately, my car wouldn’t start. I’d had some problems with one of the battery cables during the winter and had hastily repaired it in a friend’s driveway—the problem returned this weekend. On the drive down, my anti-lock brake warning lights came on. A tolerable concern, in spite of the twisty two-lane roads I’d be zipping around on for an hour and a half. No amount of cable wiggling got it started, so we moved my stuff into Pete’s car and took his, freeing me up to pound as many Budweisers as I felt like.
Friday’s float trip was a blast. Few people were on the Jack’s Fork and the river was fairly difficult to navigate—fast with plenty of obstacles and hazards. I saw no park rangers or river patrolmen and everyone I saw was having the same old party as usual. I pulled enough trash out of the river to fill up both trash bags I brought, plus one that I found at the bottom of the river, so the dipshits have been around. I heard that many campsites were empty during memorial day weekend, so it’s possible some of the worst may have been scared off by the PR blitz. The trip was long and fun. I got separated from my group since I like to kick back for stretches of time to drag my feet in the water without paddling. At least half an hour went by without seeing any other people in canoes so I began thinking I’d missed my take-out point. Turns out I was just drunk. Found the takeout point without any problem.
After that, we stopped in Eminence to pick up bourbon and sour mix for the evening. The convenience store we hit had some tables set out that old timers sat in, smoking cigars and shooting the shit. One of them had a Cardinals cap on, so I (as politely as my BA Level would allow) asked him how Thursday night’s game had turned out. We ended up talking baseball for fifteen minutes or so. To sum up, he’s impressed with Wonderbrad, wishes Suppan well, and thinks Marquis is worthless (hates him especially since he had a personal catcher last season in Gary Bennett. [ed.- I'd always thought that was La Russa's idea to protect Molina from Marquis more than anything] His opinion is that Steve Carlton, “a pitcher-and-a-half,” can have a personal catcher but Marquis isn’t nearly pitcher enough for that). Nice conversation, that guy knows his baseball. We got back to camp and had a good evening around the campfire.
Saturday morning, I slept in and awoke to the bad news that Mrs. Gianella’s glucometer broke at some point during the night and they had to get the hell to a town so they could check her blood sugar and would be able to make the trip. They had brought a water/shock-proof lantern for exploring a cave that we rather foolishly spelunked last year with one (non-waterproof) flashlight between four men. They entrusted me with the lantern and we sadly parted ways. The rest of us floated the Current River, which was up I’d guess seven or eight feet over last year at this time. As a result of the river’s swollen state, beaches were hard to find and the cave was underwater—the lantern, another waterproof flashlight, and my headlamp were all brought along for nothing. It was another gorgeous day on the river—even better than Friday. The Current is a colder river and with all the good beaches underwater, we made the trip in record time. Again, I didn’t see any river patrol and pulled yet another trash bag out of the river and took out with all three filled up with garbage that I found along the way. Early in the trip, one of my flip-flops broke that I repaired with a piece of scrap tie line I found floating down the river.
I jumped off a rock a few times and saw people jumping off cliffs. I narrowly missed some drunken idiots jumping off a bridge overpass. The fall would have been a little over twenty feet and the water depth was woefully inadequate to decelerate 180 pounds moving at that speed. I thought they were joking, the idea of jumping off that bridge so preposterous. Some of the people back at camp had seen one of the idiots jump off about twenty feet in front of their canoe. The comment was made that he’ll have an answer next time his mom asks him if he’d jump off a bridge if his best friend did.
Saturday night it rained. Hard. There was a torrential thunderstorm that soaked the campsite and flooded a few tents. The campfire was put out in a hurry and we all huddled under the pop-fly as lightning crackled above and rain pelted down. A few of us dragged supplies up to a nearby pavilion where we made a small fire in the fireplace and had a good old time drinking beer and watching the storm. My tent was perfectly dry inside since I use this stuff and pitched it away from anywhere it looked water would run on the ground.
Sunday morning, I woke up and packed up all my gear. One of my fellow campers gave my car a jump to get it started. The anti-lock brake light was still on and not long after leaving camp, my battery light came on. A half-hour of white-knuckle driving on the curvy roads between Round Spring and Salem later, I found an auto-repair shop with a garage door open. The place was closed on Sundays, but the owner was there catching up on work and agreed to take a look at the battery cable for me. He hooked it up to his meter and verified that the alternator was recharging the battery under load first. Then he cut back the bad cable with some diagonals, cleaned out all the corrosive nasty with a wire brush, tape the wires together, and bolted them back to the terminal clamp. The car started beautifully, all the warning lights went off, and my relief was enormous. The man refused any money for his help and bade me farewell, returning to his work. That’s a hell of a guy right there.
