Driving is awesome!

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For those of you that don't know, the best paddling in the world is on the Slave river, in the Northwest Territories, and I have just started a paddling adventure to this river. It's a hell of a drive from Fort Collins, Colorado to Fort Smith, the town near the rapids. Especially if nobody else could make it on the trip, and you have to do the drive alone. This was exactly the case, and I think that a lesser man would have been driven insane (get it... driven?). I was able to amuse myself by taking a few photos, which I will now share with you.

First, I experienced the five stages of driving. They're a lot like the five stages of tragedy.

Stage 1: DENIAL

2,000 miles? That's not all that far! I'll be there in a jiffy!



Stage 2: DEPRESSION

2,000 miles? That's so far. This sucks.




Stage 3: ANGER

Why didn't anyone come with me? Aargh!



Stage 4: BARGAINING

Maybe Wilson can take the wheel for a while. WIIIILLLLSON!



Stage 5: Zenlike ACCEPTANCE

I'll get there.




I was pretty excited on day two when Natalie joined me unexpectedly.


...until I realized that it was just my right hand, again.




My wallet spent a lot of time doing pushups and situps on the dash.


I think that it managed to lose a lot of weight.

Well, I won't lie. I spent a lot of time thinking up more little jokes that I could take photos of while driving, and followed through on pretty much all of them. But I won't make you read through a post that's as long as the drive was. I saw some nice scenery, and had a lot of time to think. I was reminded that paddling trips aren't really about the paddling, they're about the paddlers that come with you. Throughout the drive, I was trying to remember the last time that I was up here, and I found that I could clearly remember conversations and other stuff that I had done with Conor and Natalie, but the actual paddling was kind of a blur. I was pretty lonely. I wish that some of my friends from home could have made it. Fortunately, I've got a couple friends up here at the Slave, like John Blyth, who is letting me stay at his house. I imagine that I'll be able to have a great time.


Oh, and of course, I should at least mention:

I made it. The drive only took three days.

Comments

  1. AaronJuly 14, 2009 at 10:43 AM

    I can only imagine the music you listened to on the drive up.....

    Later,
    Aaron

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousJuly 20, 2009 at 10:02 PM

    I wish I could hang out in fort smith too! it looks like a great place to live in!!!
    Salut! Gen

    ReplyDelete

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