All thanks to The New Deal.
I was originally under the assumption that we were going to north Georgia, giving the weekend the feel of Deliverance, which of course is not a good feeling. But I was mistaken, we went further north to Tennessee, to the Ocoee River, site of the '96 Olympics canoeing and kayaking venue. We left Atlanta around 6, which as you'll see turned out to be a little too late but that was the earliest we could leave. Hungry, we agreed to drive for a little bit then get some food. Deceptive Mexican suggested we hit up a Bojangles. It sounded good, but we couldn't find one that was actually on the way. Instead we went to Mrs. Winner's. She won, we lost. The guy who appeared to be the manager talked us into a ten piece dinner, which was about 4 pieces too much for us. But that wasn't the problem. The problem was it took what felt like an hour for our food to get there. In reality it was closer to 20 minutes, despite assurances from the manager it would only be a few more minutes. In hindsight, we definitely should have stopped at the Cracker Barrel, or gone out of the way to a Bojangles. This guy looked like he had a shady past, but he was way too nice. Deceptive Mexican commented that he was either "a former drug addict who found Jesus or his parents put their cigarettes out on him when he was a kid." I wondered why those scenarios were mutually exclusive.
The time wasted waiting for "fast" food gave us a rather large set back in our race against the sun setting to get our tent up. Once again, we lost and had to put it up in the dark. And we forgot the spikes for the tent. Hope it didn't get windy that night. With a day of rafting in the sun and heat ahead of us, we decided to do the only logical thing: get drunk. We started on some bourbon, because there's nothing like some guys from Georgia sitting around a campsite in the sticks of Tennessee drinking stank ass Kentucky bourbon. On the way in we saw a hillbilly biker bar. We felt obligated to go, and it was perhaps the best decision of the trip.
I Did My Best To Hide My Liberalism
As we pulled in, Colt said to me "I think you'll be fine with your baby blue shirt because (Deceptive Mexican) has on tie dyed." There were some people out front and Deceptive Mexican said "these guys look kind of macho" to which I replied "but there's a Ford Taurus here." We walked in the mediocre cover band of guys in their 30s started playing "Turn the Page." This was going to be good. The place was like the bar in Roadhouse. It had padded ceilings and the floor was gravel--great for cleaning up puke and blood. They didn't have an ATM or take credit cards. There was a large area for dancing, or brawling. And you could bring a gun, as long as it wasn't concealed:
Does this mean I can have multiple concealed weapons?
We dined on buckets of 5 PBRs for $7. Yes, $7. We had little cash on us and they only took cash, so Deceptive Mexican and I went to a nearby gas station, which was closed. The employees were inside counting the register and somehow I convinced them to let me in to use the ATM machine. Behind me the car was running with the passenger door open, I wouldn't have blamed them if they thought I was there to rob them. On the way out to get cash the band had taken an intermission, and the bass player who seemed to be in his 50s, told us that they had to go back about a half hour later... for one song. They didn't like it, but that's what the bar told them. He said they were from Kentucky, and there were only like 8 people in the bar the whole night. We felt a little bad for them. We stayed until they closed, playing bad darts and pool, because why not.
Back at the campsite, more bourbon was consumed. Colt started a fire and ate the rest of the Mr.'s Winners, which had been sitting in his car and so the whole car smelled like fried chicken. I have no memory of what happened the rest of the night.
Well I Had A Little Drink About An Hour Ago...
Because I woke up incredibly hungover. Getting a raft seemed like the worst idea ever. As we waited for our guide and boat to come, I was sitting on the deck by the registration and some kids showed up and they walked across the deck, causing it to vibrate a little. Except to me it felt like I was standing on an earthquake. It was, in my mind, only a matter of time before I puked everywhere. Probably on the river. For a few minutes I seriously contemplated not going and just sleeping it off, but the thought passed. Our guide showed up and he looked like the dad from American Choppers. We bused to the drop off point, and my feeling of eventual vomiting did not subside. But then we got into the water and immediately, magically, wonderfully that feeling totally subsided. Spoiler: it did not return, I never did puke. I thought I would spend half the trip barfing off the side of the raft after the first real wave we hit, but no. Now I know how to cure a really bad hangover!
I had never been rafting before. Canoeing, kayaking, yes, but not rafting. I loved it, which isn't a surprise. We did the 5 hour ride, which took us through all the rapids. Our helmets looked like those Jofa hockey helmets from the late 80s/early 90s, like Jaromir Jagr had. In other words, pure style. Our guide was all business. We plowed through not just the river, but 4 other rafts. The first crash was my favorite, as we landed right on top of a woman, sending her back into her raftmates. I'm pretty sure she kind of freaked out, and I'm sure I couldn't stop laughing. Our second victim was more of a fender bender, but we enjoyed it nonetheless. In our third crash was excellent, we hit the guide on the other raft. He pulled his raft over and started barking at his patrons for not paddling properly to avoid the crash. I enjoyed another great laugh. The final crash was the weakest of the bunch. We almost had a fifth at the end, where a guy in a canoe was for some reason going the other way in a rapid, so he was paddling pretty good but going nowhere. We almost ran him over and the look on his face was fantastic, his life didn't flash before his eyes but certainly a memory or two did.
View from the top of the waterfall you can't go over. Boo.
About halfway through the journey we came to a calm but flowing part of the river, so we jumped out of the raft and floated down on our own. The water was probably in the 60s but felt like was in the 40s, which is to say it felt great. It was like I never had a hangover to begin with. We then had lunch, where we discovered in conversation that our tour guide used to be in the Marines and worked on missile launchers. He once fired a $750,000 missile, and now he gets paid to go rafting. Nice work if you can get it.
Luckily, or unfortunately depending on your view, no one fell out of the raft. Still, a great time was had. I can't wait to go back.
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