a life more awesome: Saco River Summer Brodown: The Sequel

Last year, one of the better weekends of the summer/early fall was our Saco River trip. I grew up going every year with my dad, and after a blue zoo bachelor party, I decided to go with the friends I live with and the rest of that crew last year. It was cold (it hit 32 at night), nobody really swam, and it was dead on the river, but it was fun.

We talked about it a bunch over the winter and everyone decided that we should go in the actual summer this year- when we could actually swim and not freeze to death at night. SO, I planned a date for the middle of July.

I then forgot to book the canoes. I looked into it a few days before the planned date, and Saco Bound was out of canoes. Uh oh. I immediately had nightmare visions- if they literally didn't have any canoes left, it was going to be a circus. Going smack dab in the middle of a rainless summer meant we'd be dealing with at least 20 times more people than we saw last year. But now this? Eek. I tried to push it to later in the summer, but it worked out the best for everyone to just stick with the planned weekend. I was able to rent from Saco Valley canoe instead, and we went for it on a weekend that promised temperatures in the mid 80s and zero chance of rain.

I've been wanting to cut my hair for a long time- it's been growing for more than 3 years and other than having fun headbanging or people freaking out about how long it is, it really is annoying having long hair. I don't know how people do it. So, my plan was to finally chop it off in a hilarious way- to cut it into a mullet with a chopstache.

Time disappeared and I realized that I wanted to take more pictures of it being long and of the cutting process, it needed to be clean and combed if I was going to donate it, etc. SO, I didn't mullet it. BUT, I would still be one of the ugliest people on the river, rocking a chopstache.

before:

after:

worse than any mullet could ever be

Rich and Josh joined in too- not wanting to at all, but saying "if you're gonna do it, I will too." We texted Jesse and got him on board too- we would be one ugly crew.

The trip was a disaster right away- Rich can't live without coffee and after a late start anyway, we found ourselves stuck in a Dunkin Donuts line that was practically out the door. We drove to another one, and it was just as bad. After parking and considering waiting in line or not, Rich finally just gave up and said he'd try somewhere else. He didn't tell the other car this though- we just assumed that they saw us leave. 25 minutes later, while parking at another Dunkin Donuts that was just as packed as the others, we got a call from Al saying a car had just hit him in the parking lot, and were we almost done getting coffee? Huh?

Apparently they had been sitting in the parking lot the entire time we were driving further north, having no clue that we weren't inside. Hilarious. But our line was so long that they were able to drive all the way to our current dunks and still wait for us. Maybe stopping for coffee on a perfect Saturday morning isn't the best idea?

By the time we got to Saco Bound and got shuttled to the drop in spot, it was already much later than we had hoped. And we saw that it would be even longer before we got on the river. Realistically, there may have been more people at the drop in spot (Swans Falls) than I have ever seen on the river before. It was a nightmare: full on traffic jam, cops confiscating beer and people's coolers, people waiting for their canoes to show up, practically in the woods with all their crap, etc. It was a nightmare. It was literally like a fair of people just wandering around, cars not being able to move, dust kicked up everywhere. I took a picture from the woods of what we'd have to look forward to. It didn't look good.

Zooming in, I could see that half the people weren't even on canoes- they were just floating down on tubes. And the majority of the people weren't even moving. They had pulled over to literally the first sandbar on the river, just chugging beers and getting rowdy.

I went with Rich and Al to drop our cars back at Saco Bound, then get shuttled back to Swan's Falls (to then wait forever for our canoe, pack up and get on the river). I was miserable. I told Rich that this would be a disaster- that while paddling through frat boys pissing out of their canoes and drunk girls screaming god knows what makes for funny stories, it absolutely sucks to deal with when you just want to have fun with your friends. "It'll be ok man, we'll just laugh it up with them" he said. I wasn't sold. I was furious that we weren't on the river yet, furious that I'd have to paddle through piles of people, furious that the river was the worst I've ever seen it- just a disgusting mess of floating frat parties. I felt like anything bad about the trip would be blamed on me. After all, I had planned the trip, I had chosen this weekend, etc. Harmless passing comments people had said were already getting to me. I was bummed out.

But I sucked it up and we got on the river (after a looooong wait). My theory was that most of the people were just sitting in the river drinking, so if we paddled past enough of them, the river would eventually open up and we'd be rid of them. I'd have to just fight my way through them and smile and nod at them- be a fake bro dudeguy to satisfy their drunk questions and cheers of USA.

Some spots were very hard to paddle through- people literally had 10 canoes tied to each other. Some had huge wooden planks stretched across canoes, creating river barge party boats. People were walking down the river. It was a mess of a maze.

this was like the second sandbar!

It sucked, but we fought through it. I pretended to be a dude guy, making dumb comments to people, laughing at their drunken cheers. I started to lighten up and try to enjoy the mess- there was nothing else I could do. I jokingly said "if you can't beat em, join em" and opened up a beer myself. But it was still just not quite working. I wasn't happy, and I knew that I was flat out trying to be someone I wasn't and trying to create fun when I was pissed and it was barely working.

And then something happened.

I got drunk.

It started off innocently enough- we stopped for a second and I got out of the canoe and realized I was dizzy. "whoaa... seriously?" I had had like 1 beer and 1 nip, how was this possible? But it was- apparently having a tiny sandwich hours before, a small ice T and no water at all, while standing and waiting or canoeing in 85 degree sun, 1 beer and 1 nip was all it took. Suddenly everything was better, everything was more funny. And when this happened, my head nearly exploded:

Just as Al's canoe had been the only one to (nearly) tip over the year before, it happened again. Anyone who would even try to argue that it had been Matt's fault the year before was instantly silenced. Al would later blame Dan, but we all know the truth- Al in a canoe is a disaster.

I laughed harder and more obnoxiously than I ever have while watching Dan waddle down the river, trying to catch his paddle before it floated away. Oh well, at least Al looked good.

fools.

Things only got messier from there. Nip roulette (yep- just what it sounds like- you reach into the nip container and drink whatever you get) happened a lot more than I had planned, and I just kept having more and more fun. Rich and I were like high school kids discovering alcohol for the first time.

"Rich, dude.... for real. I am DRUNK." "

"I know dude! Me too! Holy shit!"

"This is the happiest I've ever been!"

"ME TOO!"

Suddenly, we were best friends with everyone on the river. I mean, who wouldn't want to be friends with this guy?

Or this guy?

It was hilarious. We talked to every person we went past. I said unbelievably stupid things like "I'm not drunk, I'll make so many speeches to the public." When we swam, I swam right up to other boats, saying "Screw you guys, I'm hanging out with party boat!" Party boat fed me crackers and cheese. Another dude floating by asked me if I needed a beer and threw one to me. It was another world. Everyone there was a frat boy having the time of their lives, and I mean us. Especially us. We were the people we hated right when we got on the river. We were the people I laughed at when I went on a bachelor party trip years ago. We were the people who kept Dad and me up at night when we'd go when I was a little kid, hollering about god knows what late into the night.

It was hilarious. That picture above of Jesse with a cheeseball container full of nips? We all drank way too many of those, carelessly and stupidly. Then randomly some girl flashed us. I think she literally asked us if we wanted to see, and we said "duh" and there she was, topless. And the idea happened- it was so obvious it's crazy we hadn't thought of it before. I want to take credit for it, but I honestly can't remember who had the idea, even though it was the most obvious idea ever in the history of the world: Nips for nips.

It's exactly what it sounds like. Somehow the word got out, or we talked about it a lot (can't really remember), but soon enough, girls were flashing us for 1 of Jesse's awful 1 dollar flavored vodka nips. It was hilarious and awesome. How could it not be? We were floating down a river, drunkenly laughing our asses off at everything, swimming and yelling about ridiculous shit, with random people high-fiving us every second, telling Dan his shirt ruled or telling us our facial hair ruled, people giving us food and beers, and random chicks giving us a show for crappy vodka nips we didn't even care about. Suddenly, having 40+ nips didn't seem so outrageous.

We found people who we rode the shuttle with, and I got to yell SOMERVILLE!!! at them because the girl had said she lived in Somerville, MA. Party boat was a boat I got to yell at a lot. And of course underwear cowboy (yes, literally just a dude wearing underwear and a cowboy hat). It was a full on mess, and Rich and I were proudly the worst of all of us (best). I had the time of my life.

Eventually, it caught up to us though, or at least some of us. My drunk kind of just slowly went away and I had a soda or 1 beer here and there. Other people didn't have it work out for them so well. Here's Jesse giving the "no, I'm fine" thumbs up, while he's half passed out in a canoe:

And here's Al being a bit more honest:

We soldiered on though- we had places to go.

We eventually passed good ole Slut Island. It wasn't raging quite as much as I would have expected at the time, but realistically, as the river got less crowded (because even as slow as we were going, we were passing people like crazy), the alcohol wore off, and we were making good time. We were literally just waaaay ahead of the mess we had been a part of earlier. It would be hours before Slut Island became the Slut Island of which legend speaks.

Although, it definitely was starting to show signs of life...

We kept going, looking for a good sandbar that was fairly far down the river so we could have an easier day on day 2.

Eventually, we settled on a sandbar that had an opening. We realized that the river was literally so crowded that we'd have to go another few miles before the idea of a sandbar to ourselves was even possible. Maybe it literally didn't exist (we'd find out on day 2 that it didn't). It looked like a good enough spot, and even though we'd have neighbors, they weren't too close, and one of them had a girl just hanging around the river topless. I guess it could have been worse.

I went swimming one more time after setting up my tent. People settled in and I made my world famous saco river spaghetti. A few people were clearly quite burned out and Rich started getting a world champion headache.

I'm mad I didn't take any pictures of our set up, but between the maze of trying to catch up to people who were already pretty comfortable, some people being in bad moods, and the overall weight of the day closing in on us, I just didn't. It became a "set-up, settle-in" kind of thing.

Dan ended up going to bed at like 8 cuz he's apparently incredibly lame. Jesse lasted longer than I thought he would, but I think he was next with Dave following shortly after. Rich finally gave in to his head after headbobbing for 2-3 hours. Josh, Matt, Al and I stayed up later, and I had quite an interesting night. I'm gonna leave it at that. Maybe this picture I took of myself will help explain.

We awoke the next day a little tired and stiff, but otherwise feeling pretty good. After a disgusting but otherwise surprisingly pleasant bathroom experience, we packed up camp and headed out for day 2.

Yes, I just left a lot out from the night into the day.

DAY 2

It was a much more tame day- not a lot of alcohol was drank/drunk/drinked, there were less people, etc. It really was like the whole river was hungover. We'd come across big groups, but they were all pretty quiet. It seemed to definitely be a rage-until-you-collapse-on-the-first-day-and-just-relax-and-float-on-day-2 kind of thing.

This is a good picture- it shows what Rich had to look at the whole time- my disgusting back and nappy hair, but if you look in the right places- eye candy.

(no, I'm not talking about Matt's back)

We did day 2 right, with a few stops for swimming that lasted quite long. Here's Josh finding the leftover frozen pizza he brought:

And here's Dan sitting in the river eating a lunchable while Al sits in a canoe on a sandbar.

fools

The best sandbar stop involved all of us swimming with lots of frisbee. There was a huge current, it was perfectly deep, and we started randomly playing a game where 2 groups of 4 would have to tip the frisbee to someone else to catch it. This of course evolved into people screaming at each other for giving the other team crappy throws, or people erupting in screams and laughter when someone missed a super easy catch (Rich). It was super fun, and we did this for over an hour while a hundred canoes passed by.

Dave rockin it Cali style

Rich found some sweet sunglasses in the river that he started wearing. He thought they sucked, I honestly think he looks better in these than he does in his normal sunglasses.

We really lived it up on that stop.

And I hit new levels of disgusting.

Rich was already laughing at me looking that gross in a river, with fluff all over myself, drinking an american flag bud diesel. SO, I decided to step it up in the disgusting factor and just dump the beer on my head. New profile picture: COMPLETE.

We got back in our canoes and I continued the ugly.

And yes, since you were wondering, Poundie once again made the trip. He kept the weather perfect, as he always does.

We voted on if we were going to do the planned trip to Brownfield Bridge, or if people had had enough and wanted to get out where we did last year- Lovewell Pond. I voted for the pond- we would have to really rush to make the bridge, and 4 more miles of paddling wasn't what I wanted. I just wanted to keep stopping for swims. My left leg was really bothering me- too much sitting in a too-narrow canoe with it bent at weird angles. It hurt a ton and I had to stop once extra just to get out of the canoe and walk. Enough people agreed that we decided to just spend more time swimming rather than canoeing, and we went the Lovewell Pond way.

We had to paddle against the current to get to the pond, and we remembered it being quite winding and tough to get through at times. Sure enough, at the first sharp curve where the river suddenly went from 4 feet deep to 1 inch, I had to get out to pull the canoe over the sand. My left leg hit the sand and it was instantly gone. Part of it was that I was right on the slope and my foot slid down the sand, but most of it was that my leg literally just gave out on me. I was standing 1 second, the next I was in the water, barely knowing what happened. Well, what happened was that my iphone- which I had kept in a waterproof lock box thing the entire trip had recently been taken out to take a picture for instagram and I hadn't put it back yet. So, 6 days after the one year anniversary of me going swimming with my iphone last summer, I had done it again. It instantly started doing weird things, and I knew it was dead. Awesome.

I tried to get over it quickly- there was nothing I could do. This view helped a little bit.

We made it back and people were very happy to be out of canoes. We then had to sit and wait for like 45 minutes though, so we set up in the shade and creeped on babes. Rich and I went swimming one last time, but it was a horrible experience. The pond was just an incredibly shallow hot tub mudfest.

We noticed a dude with a sweet chopstache, so I convinced Josh that we needed to have a picture with him for the blog. How often does a group of disgusting schmucks with chopstaches find another dude repping the same sweet look?

Unfortunately, this not-even-good picture is the one that broke my camera. Instead of holding the camera out, I asked random chopstache dude's buddy to take the picture. I'd say the best description of him would be "drunk meathead frat boy." Needless to say, he took my camera and immediately dropped it, with the lens out, practically like he meant to do it.

me: "oh shit dude, is it broken?"

drunk meathead fratboy: "no, it's all good, don't worry"

me: "oh ok, well thanks.."

josh: "is it broken?"

me: "100%"

It broke the same way I broke my last camera, with the lens trying to back into the camera, but being banged up, it just isn't able to. I could only be mad at myself. SO, to recap, my trip ended with me down 1 iphone and 1 camera. Awesome.

We packed up and headed to the Pizza Barn, a just-whatever pizza place that's absurdly overpriced. Jesse wouldn't let up until we went last year, so I guess it's a tradition now. How does a pizza place get away with charging 25 bucks for a large pizza? By putting 4 pounds of toppings on it until you can barely even eat it:

Al got real intense though:

All in all, it was a solid experience. Day 2 was quiet and a few people showed how tired they were, but we generally had an awesome time throwing the B and swimming. Camping out was a very odd experience for me, but generally still fun. But day 1, wow. Day 1 was a blast. Maybe we should just keep going on busy weekends, and just drink a bit less so we can stretch the awesome out more next year...

I got home exhausted and stinking, and had a ticket for the gaslight anthem show in Cambridge waiting for me there. But I was stupid and guessed the show would be late with 3 opening bands. I was wrong- there were only 2 and it had started way earlier than I thought. So I was now out 25 bucks and I wouldn't be able to go to a show I really wanted to go to. Honestly though, being able to shower and just lie down and nurse my considerable sunburn was pretty glorious. Especially when the alternative would be driving an hour and a half and sleeping on an air mattress at Shaun's house.

It wasn't a perfect weekend, but it was still a friggin' blast and I'm psyched to do it again next year. I'd really like to kayak though- I want to be responsible for my own boat and not have to worry about getting out at shallow spots, worry about someone else, and most importantly worry about tipping over every 5 seconds (I'm very secure in a kayak and apparently have AWFUL balance in a canoe, or at least in a canoe with rich). I can't wait to bring back nips for nips and be best friends with everyone on the river again. Maybe we'll even do a shorter trip, so it's nothing but floating around in a canoe barge, drinking and swimming. All these years, and I'm just now realizing that all the dumb fratboys have had it right all along. Who'd have thunk?

Here's the last instagram picture that phone ever posted: