Float Trip Re-cap

Friday John and I went on an overnight camp outing followed by a float trip with my caving grotto. Let's just say that it was an extremely wet night. It took us about two hours to get up there. We got our tent set up and sat around the fire chatting until around 1:30 am when we felt the first droplets. Unfortunately the rain started coming down in sheets, making it a cold and wet evening for us. We only had one sleeping bag between us because I had forgotten the other one back at home, so we tried to curl up with it. The rain got so bad that it began dripping through the top of our tent! John ended up going to the car and sleeping there for the rest of the night. That was not a fun evening.

The next day we went over to Meramec State Park where our group had a reservation for four canoes. When we got to the point where we would get into the boat, John and I had a little problem. You see, John's about 2 1/2 times my size and weight making our balance very precarious . First John tipped the boat when he got in and then the second time I tipped it after I got in with him in it. At least we got our feet wet early on.

As we continued on we lagged way behind everyone else (I suspect because we were sitting so low in the water and I had to get out and pull us a little). Finally we stopped at our first cave. I would have thrown on my coveralls, unfortunately they were soaked from our little dip into the river. Green Cave is a really nice cave and right off the Meramec River. If you want to get a group together to go see it, I suggest you do (however be respectful, leave only footprints and take only photographs). I went as far back as we could go but John stopped when he had to start crawling. After I got back for the low section I thought that we was wussing out on me...until he showed me where the rock had cut his hand, through his gloves! I didn't blame him after that.

After we got out of the cave....lunchtime! Unfortunately John and my lunch consisted of energy bars and soda as my sandwich and John's Fritos had gotten soaked when we tipped the canoe earlier. The second part of the float consisted of John and I trying to keep up and (once) accidentally turning the canoe around and floating a few feet backwards! We finally got straightened out and luckily it wasn't too long before we were at the end of the float.

After we got out of the canoe, we threw out all of out soaked food, took a water break and headed over to the Visitor's Center to check in before we headed over to Mushroom Cave. It was about a 1/3 mile walk and then we found the slit in the ground. The group started through the cave but as we started through John had to turn back. It was a very small cave. I was one of the group rolling and crawling sideways through that cave. This one was definitely not one to go through if you are afraid of tight spaces.

John and I then headed home, enjoyed a nice long shower. I decided to dress up nice and then headed over to Saffrons for a nice dinner.

Overall I enjoyed the trip despite the wet Friday night and the quick soaking that John and I experienced at the beginning of the float trip.