It was a dark and stormy night. Outside the tent, the rain fell and formed into channels running
around the ground cloth. The refugees huddled in their damp sleeping bags as locomotives
crashed above the canyon sending echoes up and down the river. Lightning caused the tent roof
to glow eerily as I raised my head to listen. A familiar melody drifted through the campsite. "Out
in the west Texas town of El Paso" Some idiot is singing! "I fell in love with a Mexican
girl" Other voices joined in. A crash of thunder shook the air around my head and I missed
some words. "at Rosa's Cantina" Another sound--not thunder. It's snoring! I finally joined
in the song.
Eight refugees sang and shivered and hummed through the tragic lament of Wicked Felina and her doomed singing lover while their leader, the legendary Chief Standing Fox, snored. The rain and the song finally faded away, but the snoring prevailed. The travelers finally dozed off, each considering their collective plight. The river got over a foot deeper and a canoe length wider that night.
They dreamed of their families and friends and pets warm and cozy at home on Thanksgiving night. Too bad the homebodies weren't having this much fun and adventure. They had to eat turkey with dressing and watch grownup men play a boy's game on TV. On Thanksgiving eve, the travelers got to eat turkey with sand and watch each other paddle into a thirty-knot headwind. No comparison!
Chief Standing Fox was recognized as an accomplished leader of riverpersons. Everyone knew
this for it had been so written in the classified section of the Alamo Sierran. Moreover, he had a
longer paddle than anyone. Aware of his legendary skills, the refugees willingly followed him into
the wilderness known as Boquillas for the paddling pilgrimage to La Linda. Besides, he promised
to feed them well.
And on the first day, the happy paddlers met Standing Fox at Stillwell Store. The group had escaped the holiday terrors of the big city to the east and anticipated their great downriver adventure. Like the Okies leaving the dustbowl, they traveled overland in dusty vehicles with their possessions strapped to the roof or stuffed in the trunk. Standing Fox led them to Rio Grande Village where he told them to unstrap and unstuff and surrender their vehicles to the natives. The natives promptly drove away. Too late to return to the cushy city now. Silently, each refugee hoped that Standing Fox was as good as his legends.
That first day came to be known as the day of the accelerating atmosphere. Wind speed increased through the day (upriver, of course) and peaked just inside the mouth of Boquillas Canyon. So many molecules were crashing into the paddlers, and with such force, that they could no longer stand the onslaught. After a mere three miles, the travelers surrendered and pitched camp in Saharan dunes by the river. After a meal of turkey with sand, yams with sand, and chocolate pie a la sand, Standing Fox announced that there would be no extra charge for the exfoliation of the epidermis each traveler had received.
The second day began auspiciously. Two of the refugees, Dottie and Henry, decided to paddle together that day. Both were strong paddlers. Just a few feet from shore, both executed perfect draw strokes. Their strokes were so strong that their canoe twisted from the competing forces and took on water from both sides of the canoe at once! They swamped in a foot of water. It was an omen.
That second day became known as the day of progressive precipitation. Fog turned to mist. Mist became a sprinkling. Sprinkling changed to rain, and rain into a downpour. Then the deluge began. Already drenched, Henry and Dottie were not as aware of the creeping dampness as the remainder of the group. My expensive wetness-wicking wardrobe was being over-challenged. Another short day, and Standing Fox pointed to small bit of Mexican shoreline that was only semi-muddy and declared it to be our home for the evening.
We erected a lean-to to shelter the dinner cooks. The lean-to trapped water efficiently and the cooks, who originally had standing headroom, resorted to cooking while sitting and finally crawling around as the tarp filled with rain and lowered toward the cooking pots. Finally one refugee with the improbable name of Gib decided to stand up and lift the center of the tarp thereby spilling the collected rain. The short but intense flash flood that followed washed happy camper Jolene down a small gully and transformed her into unhappy camper Jolene.
The third day began with stowing tents and sleeping bags (both strangely filled with wet sand) into canoes recently emptied of rainwater. The air was still and small patches of blue were visible in the sky. The refugees looked around suspiciously. It was one of those heavy intense moments when something was overdue. We didn't have to wait long. Perhaps our luck was changing. It was sunlight!
The third day became known as the day of passionate paddling. Sunshine warmed our bodies and evaporated the moisture from our waterlogged gear. Canoes became lighter and faster. Rain gear and jackets disappeared. Standing Fox told us of giant rock rabbit ears that would overlook our campground that night. We paddled smoothly and quickly and thought of sunscreen for the first time on this trip. The Arroyo Venado Rapids were gone. Just not there. By early afternoon, Rabbit Ears materialized, enormous Rabbit Ears, sculpted in stone high above a grassy campground somewhere in extreme northern Coahuila. We pitched our tents early to allow them to complete drying.
We were at Refugee Central. Camped around us were Turkey Day escapees from Dallas, Bosnia,
Houston, Chechnya, and Texas City. Faced with all those people, Gib climbed up a little side
canyon to hide. When he got lonesome and/or hungry, he realized that he couldn't get back down.
He was finally (and dramatically) rescued by Claire, Sylvia, and Rickie. Jolene stood to the side
laughing uncontrollably. She was finally a happy camper again. The rescue was a true Kodak
moment!
Day four was another beautiful paddling day. Bright sunshine and a light downriver breeze. We'd made an early start, well ahead of the refugee throng. Our target for the day was a campground near Arroyo del Veinte rapids, just three miles above our final river destination at La Linda.
The fourth day became known as the day of the rushing rafters. Most of the other paddling groups, under the direction of leaders far less able than Standing Fox, got on the river a day later than us and planned to take out a day earlier. As a result they were racing toward La Linda as we calmly and deliberately paddled toward our final campground. The primary preponderance of these poor pitiful pathetic paddlers were pooped while we were rested, relaxed, restored, renewed, reinvigorated, revived, regenerated, and refreshed. We embarrassed them without trying too hard.
The only whitewater we found on the trip was at Arroyo del Veinte but it wasn't scary. Standing Fox muttered "agua blanca clase uno a menos" or something like that. We took action photos by moving the camera as we tripped the shutter so it would appear that some serious movement was taking place.
We had experienced two rough weather days (wind and rain) followed by two absolutely gorgeous days on the Rio Grande. The weather on the fifth and final day would tip the scales to "yuch" or "ahh" and the campers that fourth evening discussed the probabilities. After doing our best to finish off all the wine we brought, the general consensus was that we had proven that we could handle anything Natura Madre could throw at us. We had bonded as a group and felt we could respond to any challenge.
Unfortunately, we overlooked one possibility. When we finally awoke Sunday morning, it was twenty-one degrees. No one wanted to climb out of a warm comfy sleeping bag to start a cooking fire. An overabundance of Saturday night wine and an underabundance of Sunday morning thermal energy made staying under cover a very appealing alternative.
As my urinary bladder pressure increased, I weighed the alternatives of death by freezing versus death by uremic poisoning. I peeped out of sleeping bag and my breath immediately fogged up the interior of the tent. Living past that morning seemed only a remote possibility.
Finally Chief Standing Fox, moving very slowly, arose and crept up on a Coleman stove that was so chilled its molecules were brittle. He got a fire started and soon the aroma of coffee and apple-cinnamon oatmeal stirred those wrapped in their sleeping bags pretending to still be asleep. Fortunately our stash of clothing which had been rain-soaked just two days earlier had dried and we put everything on. We had layers and layers on top of layers and layers.
Try to imagine the Pillsbury Doughboy paddling a canoe. Now imagine nine Pillsbury Doughboys half-paddling and half-drifting the three miles toward Gerstacker Bridge and La Linda.
By the time we arrived at our takeout, the sun was out and the temperature was moving up. The natives who had taken our dusty vehicles had obviously tired of driving around and left them at La Linda.
That final day became known as the day of the gorging gourmets. We hastily packed stuff and
canoes and more stuff and headed out toward Marathon and the famed Gage Hotel by way of
Stillwell Store and their equally famed primitive showers ($2 for a shower, $3 with towel). We
met at the Gage's new bar and restaurant for lunch. With classic West Texas understatement, the
menu featured Chicken Fried Steak which in reality was Chicken Fried Hindquarter of Beef. After
collectively downing several head of cattle and innumerable chickens, the escapees planned their
next adventure and headed back toward the big city in the east.
Editor's Request for April Issue Input
In odd-numbered years, the Alamo City Rivermen Newsletter has published some really unique (weird) and classic (bizarre) news items in its April 1st issue. Readers of the newsletter are encouraged to submit theme ideas and/or articles to Editor Gib Hafernick.
Tentative themes this year are:
http://www.rivermen.org/ Any items that might be found on an Internet homepage (e.g., virtual canoeing, cyberpaddling, FAQs, whitewater kayak surfing) or related to e-mail or news groups or reviews (e.g., the new Wetscape 3.0 browser).
Official Journal of the American Kazoo Association Items and articles related to our favorite sport, such as whitewater kazooing techniques, kazoo camping, kazoo gear, or famous kazooing events (e.g., the Texas Kazoo Safari or the Houston Kazoo Club's annual Kazoo Rendezvous).
Martha Stewart Paddling Ideas for decorating your canoe (e.g., thwart lace, gunwale accents, throw pillows) or cooking (e.g., holiday Dutch oven treats, pastry paddles, mousse hunting in a canoe) or repair/renovation hints (e.g., patching a kayak with parchment paper, growing ivy in your canoe).
