Hardest part of something new

People.  They are the hardest part of something new.  

Not the new people, or the scariness of starting a new life.  Not flinging myself into the relative unknown of France, where I don't even speak the language yet.  The hardest part of starting over is leaving all the wonderful people I already know.  Being in one place for five years makes for quite a few really good friends.  Just uprooting and telling them all goodbye, for me, is harder than the uncertainty of not knowing where I will be going next.  Those people make your life, and leaving them is, in some way, cutting out a piece of your life.  

So, as a sort of last hurrah with some good friends, we got together for a float trip down the elk river.  Beautiful river, and the outfitter was really nice.  We got there on Friday evening (after I led the convoy on the very scenic route, to no end of mockery when we got there) and set up camp.  We had an awesome evening of beer and stories and a full moon(not the cheese kind) around the campfire, and finally everyone hit the hay.

The day dawned beautiful.  After a 20 min ride, we hit the water in true chillax fashion.

Every float trip needs some flying water.

After a few miles, a few of us found a 'shortcut' that had to be taken!  It was the best kind of shortcut, with down trees and much longer than the main channel.

 

And then it started getting more hairy.

Finally, after we got about 40 min into our 2 min shortcut, we decided to 'cut our losses' and just portage to the main river, which we thought was just over the hill.  Turns out, not so much.

Once we joined everyone else, we had a wonderful lunch.  After lunch, the sky started closing in.  At first, it was just a little rain.  We tried to hide under some trees to see if it would just pass over.

Shortly, we gave up and just enjoyed the deluge!

Eventually we made it back home.  After all the adventures of the day, it was time to pack up everything (of course, it dumping down rain) and make tracks for somewhere drier.  However, the day ended with some wonderful Mellow Mushroom pizza, so it all turned out well in the end.