We had sort of a crazy day this past Sunday. To start the day off right, we were surprised by some nice rain. The rain of course makes the river so much more fun. The same river that takes us about 5 minutes to cross when it is dry out delayed us for more than an hour. For starters, the current is so much stronger, therefore the raft guys can't reach the normal spots. To make things worse, when it floods a little bit, you get about 6 inches of water that you have to drive or walk through before you can even get to the rafts. So there we are in our suits, Mike and I on bikes, and about 10 other witnesses on foot. The special pioneer brother has a pickup truck, which he takes as far as the river and then leaves it there. He gets the bright idea to see if he could back the truck out into this shallow flooded section to at least ferry the people on foot out to where the rafts can pick them up. Of course, that ended badly, with us having to wade out into the river to push him out. Not that it made much of a difference in how wet we got: Mike and I still had to drive our bikes out into the river, then stand in it to lift the bikes up onto a raft. When we finally did get to the other side, I find out that my good buddy Eric, who had been so kindly holding onto my shoes for me, had in fact dropped one into the river getting of the raft, and then chased it down stream. Don't worry, he had gotten it back, just soaking wet. But wait, the adventure continues, because now we have to cross the bikes through all this loose sand on the other bank that the changing river had left behind. Not a real problem for me, but poor Mike has only had his bike for about 6 days at this point, and down he went. Not a big deal (he was moving about a half a mile an hour), the only thing hurt was his pride (I guess posting it on the internet doesn't help. . .sorry Mikey). So now, we are a half hour late for the meeting (not that they would start without us, we had all the brothers, including the speaker), it is still raining, and I get to spend the next 15 minutes shuttling people the rest of the way to the hall on the back of my moto.
The meeting itself went rather well, with the exception that it continued raining the entire time. As we are sitting there listening to the talk, we are all thinking the same thing: getting home is going to be interesting. Sure enough, by the time meeting is over, the river has swelled even more. The trip home is always harder for the raft guys anyways, simply because of the way the river flows. On the Kingdom Hall side, there is a second little river that flows into the main river just above where we cross. This means that starting from that side, the water is deeper and faster. Because of the rain, this little river had flooded over a section of the bank, creating a sort of triangle shaped sandbar out in the river where the two meet. The rafts could only make it to this patch of sand, which meant we were left up to our own devices to get ourselves across the first stretch of water. This is the point where I figured out that my bike could still run even when the water is coming up over the wheels. Even so, the actual depth of the water wasn't as big of an issue as the current which was pushing pretty good. By the time I got to the other side the muffler was squirting out water. With Mike's bike, he and one of the raft guys basically just picked it and carried it through the water. The actual raft ride, once we got to them, was not very eventful, just that by the time we made it to the other side, we had been swept way downstream. Not a big deal, we just have to drive back up through all the mud. The final touch to the morning was watching Mike struggle and fight his way up through this mud, only to be passed by a Dominican guy driving his moto one-handed while talking on his cellphone.
Of course after all this we had to have a Super Bowl party. That basically consisted of Matt and Debora, Chris and Cherrie and the three of us going out for pizza. We found out who won the day after.
The meeting itself went rather well, with the exception that it continued raining the entire time. As we are sitting there listening to the talk, we are all thinking the same thing: getting home is going to be interesting. Sure enough, by the time meeting is over, the river has swelled even more. The trip home is always harder for the raft guys anyways, simply because of the way the river flows. On the Kingdom Hall side, there is a second little river that flows into the main river just above where we cross. This means that starting from that side, the water is deeper and faster. Because of the rain, this little river had flooded over a section of the bank, creating a sort of triangle shaped sandbar out in the river where the two meet. The rafts could only make it to this patch of sand, which meant we were left up to our own devices to get ourselves across the first stretch of water. This is the point where I figured out that my bike could still run even when the water is coming up over the wheels. Even so, the actual depth of the water wasn't as big of an issue as the current which was pushing pretty good. By the time I got to the other side the muffler was squirting out water. With Mike's bike, he and one of the raft guys basically just picked it and carried it through the water. The actual raft ride, once we got to them, was not very eventful, just that by the time we made it to the other side, we had been swept way downstream. Not a big deal, we just have to drive back up through all the mud. The final touch to the morning was watching Mike struggle and fight his way up through this mud, only to be passed by a Dominican guy driving his moto one-handed while talking on his cellphone.
Of course after all this we had to have a Super Bowl party. That basically consisted of Matt and Debora, Chris and Cherrie and the three of us going out for pizza. We found out who won the day after.
2 comments:
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