I Have Fought The Mormon Hordes, And I Have Won

A couple days ago, I got back from a four-day trip down the Green River in Eastern Utah through a section known as Labyrinth Canyon. Well, let me rephrase. I got back from what was supposed to be a four-day trip. It was actually only two days. You see, my friends and I had done this particular stretch of water before, and we had to paddle our cute little white asses off for three days straight through 68 miles of nearly stationary water. This time, we thought ahead and went when the water was at its height for the year, which made for a much faster current. That way, we could drift without paddling for most of the trip, and we planned on taking about three and a half or four days on the river, stopping when we felt like it to set up camp, drink, punch babies, what have you...

OK, so that was the plan. In execution, it looked very different. First of all, one of our cars ran out of gas in the middle of Utah. You see, the driver, who I choose not to name, had failed to take into account the added weight and wind resistance of a trailer and three canoes into our predicted gas mileage, so we ran the tank dry a mere eight miles short of our planned gas stop. Not a big deal, but it was certainly an annoyance. It only served to further cement my feeling that all bad things that happen on road trips happen in Utah.

We got on the river without incident, and thankfully none of us tipped the first night. We left at about 11 pm the first night, and there was no moon to speak of in the night sky. That fact, coupled with our relatively remote location, made for a remarkably clear sky. With no source of light near us (aside from the occasional headlamp or flashlight to make sure we weren't about to fall off a waterfall or something), we could see more stars than I've ever seen at one time before. It was beautiful. Until I got slpashed by, like, a fifteen foot wave that completely soaked my shorts. Damn river.

The trip continued, by and large, without incident. We came, we saw, we conquered, yadda yadda yadda... Then came the second full day. It started off well. Then we got into a little rain. Let me tell you, I can honestly say without hyperbole that paddling a canoe in the rain makes Iwo Jima look like just another day at the beach. After the rain let up, we decided to lash our canoes together and drift for a few miles before setting up camp. One of the gentlemen... how should I put this? One of the gentlemen has an easy-to-please sensibility when it comes to alcohol. For his share of the booze, he brought a bottle of something called Admiral Nelson spiced rum. For anyone interested in giving the Admiral a little try... don't. Anyway, we were all busy trying to get one of the guys to keep drinking rum, and apparently, we accidentally drifted right past the point where we were supposed to pull out of the river. It just whizzed right on by.

Raise your hand if you'd ever had to pull yourself and all your supplies in a canoe up river by the branches of the trees that line the riverbank. You can't see it, but I'm raising my hand right now. It took us about 90 minutes to pull ourselves 120 yards up river. By the end, our canoes were filled with broken tree branches, one of the canoes had tipped, and we'd lost a paddle. Fun fun fun.

Then when we pulled out at a spot called Mineral Bottom, and that's where we met the ranger. He was the single most fascinating person I've ever spoken to. He kept rambling about his Nobel Prize. Intrigued, we asked him what he was going to win a Nobel Prize for. Biology. He asked us, "Any of you boys raise chickens or birds of any kind?" Um... no, Mr Crazy River Dweller. "Well, when you raise chickens, you have to rotate the eggs every once in a while. Do you know why?" Justin, our resident pre-med student, said, "Oh, I learned this. Lemme think..." to which the rnager replied, "Oh, no you didn't. No one knows about this. That's why I'm gonna win me a Nobel Prize. You see, you have to rotate the eggs because all warm-blooded animals have to re-orient themselves within the Earth's magnetic field." Uh... ok. Apparently, our crazy, pot-addled friend sleeps in an adult incubator. It's just a regular bed with a bunch of magnets hanging around it, rotating 360 degrees every two hours. That way, the magetic field around him changes without him having to toss and turn all night. He later when on to explain to us that alternating-current electricity was killing us and that Jesus wasn't God, but rather the inventer of the bed. I kid you not.

Actually, it was fun. I learned that man cannot live on MREs alone, that Maglite flashlights can sit in river water for six hours and still work perfectly well, that it takes Hanes boxer briefs nearly 24 hours to dry after you've been splashed by, like, a fifty-foot wave, that one of my friends needs only to smell amaretto and he'll be hammered, that Coppertone does, in fact, make SPF 50 sunblock, that Degree antiperspirant will last four days without reapplying, and that it's really useful to have a GPS unit when there's even the slightest possibility that you could accidentally drift past the spot in the river when you were supposed to get out because you were too busy trying to get your friend to drink more Admiral Nelson spiced rum or amaretto.