With the 3rd year in a row we've gotten a crew together to hit up the Saco River, it's officially become a yearly thing I don't see ending any time soon.
Year 1 was a quieter, colder test run of sorts.
Year 2, we added 2 people and experienced it correctly for the first time (drunk).
Year 3 came about after a week of endless rain. We were granted a nice weekend forecast, and headed out, with 2 new dudes added to the crew- Buote and Ahadi.
The first picture I took told me bringing Ahadi was a good idea.
We threw all our stuff into 3 cars and met at Saco Bound, thankfully around the same time, with nobody being left at Dunks for 40 minutes. We noticed there were a lot less people than expected.
Walking in, there was a weird vibe. All I heard was how deep the water was, that there weren't a lot of sandbars to camp on, etc. I went up to talk to the guy and found out right away that this was not looking like a good year for a trip.
Because of how much it had rained, all the water pretty much comes down the mountains and joins the river. I've known since I started going to the Saco River that an inch or 2 of rain can make the river rise up a foot. The guy told me that they weren't taking people out at some spots (meaning we couldn't do our planned trip), there were barely any sandbars left and we'd have to camp in the woods, there'd be cops patrolling the river to make sure people were safe, and a lot of people had cancelled their reservations. The river had risen a lot- I feel like it was 8 feet, but I may be way off. Still though- a way longer or way shorter trip, camping in mosquito land, waaaay deeper river, no sandbars to stop at, cops everywhere, and thousands of drunk morons we can high five and drunk sorority girls we can creep out would be missing.
"So... I guess we're not doing this?"
We took a vote and I think only 2 people were still up for it. An idea was hatched immediately though- we had already put in money, we had already made the drive, we'd already packed, and we had a wide open weekend. Where could we go to drink all the beer and nips we had?
Dave and Ahadi got on the horn calling a few campsites we knew, and everyone was booked. Then Ahadi said we should camp on Long Lake in Maine, where he used to go with his family growing up. It was an hour away (and literally like 15 minutes from where I grew up), it would probably be packed, but we had to go somewhere. So we called it. They had spots available. I guess we were camping on Long Lake.
Since I'm writing this 10 months after it happened, it's funny that our trip to Walmart to get a few things we needed stands out as a big memory in my mind. It was hilarious. 10 dudes who suddenly didn't have to be in a canoe and could carry more just buying so much random stuff. So many extra snacks, a plastic washers game, a giant float, several crappy tiny floats, other dumb toys. We were there forever too.
When we eventually got to the site, Ahadi and I went in to pay, and I was sooo worried right off the bat. There were families everywhere, and even with 3 spots, we had a pretty small amount of space to get the level of rowdy we were hoping for. But we made it work great (1 site for cars, 1 for tents, 1 for grill/food/hanging out), and we immediately settled in.
And immediately started drinking.
soooooo many nips
And immediately started setting things on fire.
So when we got there, the people who had the spot before us were still cleaning up. They left their fire going a bit, and Dave and Buote turned into extremely destructive people who saw a towel hanging on a line and thought "these jerks left their towel behind and a fire. Let's set their towel on fire!!" literally like 10 minutes after these people left. Only it was Josh's towel that he's owned for like 10 years. I think Buote and Dave have since bought him 6-10 new towels. But none were as good as that one. Trip off to a good start!
We sat for awhile.
Then decided it was time to swim.
Swimming was absolutely hilarious. We brought nips with us that we drank in the water, we threw the B and the Waboba, I kept trying to sink Al's float. It was windy and wavy, the water was deeper than I was expecting, there were a lot of people there, but we didn't care. We were there to party. We went back to the camp site for a bit, where I barely remember this picture being taken with Buote:
Then we headed back. This time, several of us were pretty wasted. I think back to that day and wonder how I didn't drown. I was SO hyper- just endless energy, swimming everywhere, holding my breath for long periods of time. At one point, Rich, Josh and I had a King of the Hill battle on a float that I'm still not sure we were even supposed to be on, pushing each other into deep water with barely any time to take a breath, drunk. By the time everyone had left and the beach settled down, I was absolutely exhausted. These few hours were honestly some of the most fun hours of my whole summer. But man, they were risky. Less drinking and swimming in the future maybe.
It was time for more hanging out at the camp site.
and yawning, eh rich?
At some point Ahadi got pizza from the little camp store, and truthfully, I should have abandoned the Saco River spaghetti and just ordered a whole pizza from the camp store they had. But I'm a man of traditions.
We just hung hard for the next few hours as it started to get dark, playing lots of beer pong, drinking, smoking, having a blast. I cooked up some Sac River Spaghetti, others cooked burgs and snausages.
Matt and Dan were way too good.
At some point, Al, Buote, Josh and I ventured around the whole campsite and found the building there was an all-you-can-eat breakfast at the next morning.
We played some intense games of foosball while Josh picked his nose.
gotcha!
By the time we got back, Dan was showing his normal level of partying:
As people surrendered to a day in the sun with lots of swimming and drinking, us late nighters hung around the fire. And Jesse got real weird.
I started trying to get into my tent and realized I had to go to the bathroom. This is an odd thing to write on my blog, but this was one of the great things about not being on the river- we had actual toilets that weren't outhouses. I'm sure Al, who had explosive diarrhea the whole trip, appreciated this the most. By the time I got back, I could hear lots of snoring, and other than Matt, who was still sitting by the fire (and scared the hell out of me), everyone was out. I could hear other groups talking, but it was mostly quiet.
I woke up like 4 hours later, freezing and listening to a stupid bird that refused to shut up. Ahhh... the joys of sleeping outside in a tent.
Once it was morning and we finally all collected by the fire, I lost it when I saw Ahadi, looking like a homeless piece of shit, wearing a Megadeth hooded sweatshirt and one of those silver survival blankets.
As I took more pictures, I didn't think I could capture his piece-of-shit-ness better. But he kept surprising me.
And then he hit a home run.
most ridiculous person alive
We ate snacks and started to clean up our mess. You wouldn't believe what 10 not-exactly-health-conscious dudes can create when they already pack too much food, then find out they have unlimited space and buy more.
Looks like 50 people moved in for a week.
Buote and Dan finally got out the plastic washers game they got. It didn't work too well.
Then Dan stepped it up hard. While I was taking my tent down, he went and bought 2 breakfast pizzas, both solidifying that I really should have gotten pizza the night before, and making all of our days. It was awesome. I'd never had a breakfast pizza, and goddamn did these hit the spot.
During cleanup, Ahadi found the sandwich he had packed, ravaged by the water from his cooler. Since Josh ate a few bites of his soggy pizza last year, we told Ahadi that he had to eat at least a bite of his mush sandwich. And thus a tradition was born.
We packed up everything and headed to the beach to take a picture of all of us by the lake, keeping with tradition even if there weren't any canoes. I like this pic of Jesse, left behind in a barren campsite once filled with life.
We took the pic then argued about what to do next. Some of us wanted to stay and swim, others wanted to leave here since they were dry and packed up, but were open to swimming somewhere else. Others wanted to go to the pizza barn and leave as soon as possible. Forever leading the GTFO (get the fuck out) crew, Jesse took Al, Dave and the new GTFO All Star Buote to the pizza barn. Lame!
The rest of us adventurers decided to freeze to death at the Kanc, parking forever away.
It was the most packed I've ever seen it.
I probably say this every time I go, but I swear it was also the coldest it's ever been. Why do we keep going back to this place? It physically hurts! Everyone went in accept for Dan. We hung out in the waterfalls, went down a slide, I took video nobody will ever see because I was too lazy to edit it then and my imovie is broken right now and I don't want to deal with it. At one point, we saw a hot chick half in the water while her friend took pictures of her, then she started filming all the people staring at her friend. What an asshole! How are we not supposed to look?!
We then stopped at a spot Ahadi had been to before (I think) right on 16 that we'd all seen a billion times and never eaten at. I don't remember the name of the place, but it was awesome. Route 16 Diner?
but apparently Ahadi was disgusted with me
We all ate way too much. Everything was solid. I rode back with Matt and Ahadi, having some good chats the whole way. When we got back to the nerd compound, I packed up everything into my car and headed home where the horrible job of cleaning up and putting everything away awaited me. Successful trip!
So we didn't get to do the Saco River last year. No drunk canoeing, no jugamos, no Al tipping his canoe, no nips4nips, no drunk college chicks, no high fiving random dudes, no underwear cowboys (well, Rich took on the role briefly while we were packing up), no TIP games while people canoed through, but also no canoeing (more work than you want it to be), no shitting in the woods, and my butt didn't hurt all day from sitting on those awful canoe seats. I think we did a phenomenal job of saving a weekend with this, but it's time for our triumphant return to river madness this summer.
BROS
currently listening to: Scissorfight- "Mantrapping For Sport And Profit"
