Well ... alot has happened over the last week.
I was hoping to have more indepth updates on my blog on my paddling trip to Ain't Louiefest 2008 in Tennessee but it just didn't happen due to being out late everyday from paddling.
Here is the coles notes version about my trip.
Thursday 06-Mar-2008:
Left work at 2pm and headed of to Grant's place in Dearborn, MI. I crossed the border at Windsor after hitting the duty free shop for party essentials (Malibu, Ameretto, and Peach Snapps).
Grant and Sherry were leaving just as I pulled around the corner. I went oh crap ... how long are they gone for. A few minutes later they came back after they realized I had two canoes on my car and they figured it was me. They were heading out for pizza so I decided to do a Costco run for food supplies for the week.
I finally got back to Grant's and we all caught up on life stories. Sherry was suprised when I gave her a couple of penguins (she collects them) from the Baby Penguin wine I had bought during the xmas holidays.
Friday 07-Mar-2008:
I left Grant's at 5am as I had at least 10 hours of driving to do before getting down to Wears Valley, TN. I finally made it to Knoxville, TN around 3:30pm after a long drive in the rain and some snow in Kentucky. I am glad I left a day earlier than originally planned as I was ahead of the big storm that was coming in.
Here is a great travel tip. I stopped at Wallmart to pickup the rest of the groceries and a Net10 (www.net10.com) celluar phone. I read an article when I was out west a few weeks back about how Canadian cell phone users get severley hosed on calls made in the USA. I bought a phone for just over 32 bucks including taxes. It came with 300 minutes of calling time for anywhere in the USA or 150 minutes if you just made calls to Canada. It was well worth it considering I would have been paying $1.75 per minute with my regular phone. The only downside was you could not use it to send text messages out of the USA.
I made it to the cabin rental place around 5pm and picked up the keys. I did a quick recce to see where the Rich's would be staying before heading off to our cabin. I offloaded my gear into the only bedroom and stocked up the fridge and cupboards with the groceries. I phoned Craig to see where he was. He was glad I phoned him as he forgot the directions on how to get to our cabin at home.
Craig was the first person to show up. He scared the crap out of me as i was just getting into the hot tub. It sure is nice to soak and have drinks in the tub. Craig came all the way from Boston, MA to stay with our group. We got to know each other for a bit before Neil and Derek showed up around 1:30am. I asked if they heard from Dan at all as he was supposed to fly from Buffalo into Knoxville and get to our place around midnight. Turns out the storm hit there pretty bad and all the flights were cancelled and had called Neil to let him know he wasn't coming. Dan was all set to head back home when Derek said why don't you drive down. I think there was a slight pause and he said OK what the hell.
Saturday 08-Mar-2008:
We woke up to a really high wind with horizontal snow flying through the air. We decided against paddling today as the snow storm was supposed to hit us later in the day. The four of us headed into town and went to Knifeworks for a tour. This place had every kind of knife you could imagine. After that it was off to Basspro Shops. Dan finally made it into to town around 2pmish. He was in the front parking lot of the store and came into find us. He was pretty well bagged after being up all day friday and driving through the night with a few hours sleep in the car on the. We went to Bennetts BBQ for a late lunch. Dan and I headed back to the cabin while the others did a road trip around the neighbourhood scouting some of the rivers. We had a late dinner followed by drinks in the hot tub (this was the main theme for the week).
Sunday 09-Mar-2008:
We got up early and did the breakfast thing. We had various discussions on where to go paddling. We decided to do the Little River in the Smokey Mountains which was only about a half hour away. It was a nine mile section of class 2/3 with a smattering of class 4. Paddling down here in TN is different. Lots and I mean lots of rocks and boulders to avoid. It was a great warm up paddle. We met lots of the other Canadians. There had to be at least 20 boaters on the river. It was a great day of paddling. The temperature was about +4C when we started and warmed up a bit. I had three out of boat experiences and ran a few things backwards but I had alot of fun. At one point Neil was in front of me and his boat went sideways across the top of a drop. I ended up running into him and pushed his boat over making him swim the long drop. Sorry buddy. I ended up running it backwards. It was pretty cool out by the time we got to the takeout as the sun was coming down which makes a difference when your paddling in high mountain terrain. Everyone made it off safe and sound. It was back to the cabin for dinner. We did a quick visit over to the Rich's cabin to catch up with them.
Monday10-Mar-2008:
We decided to meet up with the gang and paddle on Clear Creek. We thought we had missed everyone but it turns out that we ended up being the first ones at the putin. In one moment we were the only two vehicles there and it was like the cavarly came into town and the parking lot was over filled. Most of the gang paddled from Barnett Bridge to Jett which was a class 1/2 five mile run. We had a few of the younger paddlers with us (11 years old and under). Our group and some of the others decided to continue on and paddle the Jett to Lilly section as well. It was a class 2/3 two mile run. The last set of rapids was extremely fun and challenging.
Tuesday 11-Mar-2008:
Our group decided to head over to the meeting place in Lenoir City ( one hour away) at the Dinner Bell restaurant. It was great to meet the US boaters who we had only heard about and never met in person. Our initial plans was to run the Lower Tellico River but that soon changed when the others decided to head over to the Cheoah which was back towards where we had just came from but on the other side of the Smokies in North Carolina. The convoy of 24 boats headed east. We ended up driving along the side of the river and I basically went holy crap ... there is no way I am running that boulder field. I explained to the others when we stopped that there was no hope in hell of me making it down that river in one piece. So that left 22 boats consisting of 21 Canadians and Louie as the only US paddler in the group which is kind of funny considering this is a US paddling festival.
Craig and I left the gang and headed over to the Nantahala which was another 30 minutes down the road. We did not know what we were going to do for the shuttle. We just put in and started paddling and would figure it out at the end if we had to hitch hike back or not for the truck. It was a 8.5 mile run to the bottom. We managed to do most of it in just under two hours. We were relieved when we ran into some of the other Canadians on the river which ended our dilema on how we would get the truck back.
We met up with the others back at the cabin. I gave them a call when we were about 15 minutes out so they could start dinner. I told Derek we had a great day of paddling except that we had to hitch hike back to the truck. It was until later that night after i offloaded the pictures from the day that he realized we did not hitch hike at all. The others said they had a really excellent challenging day of paddling. They all agreed that I would not have had a great time on that river with my big boat.
Wednesday 12-Mar-2008:
Dan, Derek, and Neil left at 6am to go back home. Craig and I headed over to meet everyone at the Tellico River for noon. There was going to be a huge armada of open boats running Baby Falls. We met up with some people from Kingston. Craig decided to run the river with them and I would run part of the river with Gail and gang after the huckfest as I really wanted to take pictures of the others. The two hour wait was worth for the pictures I took. I did a short one mile run on the Tellico from below Jarods Knee to Turkey Creek. It was pretty challenging. I had to chase Liz's boat when she ended up going for a swim. I ended up with one out of boat experience after leaning the wrong way after going over a small pour but I quickly did a self rescue and got back into my boat. I ended up running the drop at Bounce of Bob rock backwards after just missing the upper eddy. I did it with style and finished it still in my boat. I managed to hitch a ride back up to the top to get Craig's truck and picked him up at his takeout further down the river. After that we hit the Tellico Beach roadside food establishment for some excellent burgers and fries. Whe got back to the cabin late. I spent the evening doing laundry and packing up my stuff as i was leaving the next morning. I offloaded my pics of the day and showed them to Craig. I managed to get a visit over to say goodbye to the Rich's and Greve's.
