Yay. Rain...

 "I don't think the heavy stuff's gonna come down for quite awhile." - Carl Spackler

We have a rain noise maker in our house.  You turn it on and it is an endless loop of gentle rain sounds that help you drift off into a peaceful slumber.  This morning as I lie in bed half awake listening to the rain maker I realized two things.  One, the rain sounds help you to stay in bed as well (or maybe even better!) than helping you fall asleep.  Two, it wasn't on.  I was hearing real rain.  Steady,  all day kinda rain.  It hasn't rained much yet this spring and I hadn't really thought about it too much.  Rain.

Bigfoot, bears, snakes and amorous hillbillies aside, rain is what I am most concerned about.   Not just getting wet either.  Not that I'm looking forward to that at all.  It's the morale drain that rain can bring.  If it rains on us the first two days then we still have two days of rain, and that is a lot of damn rain!

My only real memory of the original trip is sitting in a car at a boat launch.  The windows are fogged up and it is a straight downpour.  Out of the foggy rain soaked haze one canoe, then two, silently cut through the water and slowly paddle to the dock.  No fan fare of any kind.  I remember some of us were hoping we'd get to go for a ride in the boats...

Mike, Mark and myself to be exact.  I'm sure we discussed our whole plan while at Sunday School.  When we weren't learning about Jesus at Sunday School the three of us were usually up to no good.  Keep in mind our mothers tried.  A lot.  Unfortunately, the call of some unexplored area around the little country church that required planning and usually some hand drawn map or the torment of some pre-teen girls was just too much temptation to resist... especially for Mark.

Back to the boat dock:  As we all waited for our spin around the river in the canoes, I'm certain we were all just running endlessly at the mouth describing the bravado and "daring do" that was about to commence.  Until we saw them.  Rarely as a child was I silent.  The somber beer-less quartet made their way to dry land and the crowd was hushed.

THAT is what I want to avoid.  Four days of misery.  I know we have been discussing it and even expecting it but, even still, I hope for dry-ish weather.  Because draped in a trash bag wearing swimming trunks is NOT how I want to meet Bigfoot!


Carl Spackler was Bill Murray's character from the movie  Caddy Shack.