Worst River Trip Ever

Worst River Trip Ever

It was a Saturday like any other Saturday morning, typically when we float we try to leave the house by 10 or 11. Jason and I were hanging out in Austin, while our wives had spent the evening in San Antonio visiting a friend and hanging out on the Riverwalk. All of us had imbibed our own fair share of alcohol the night before, so we were off to a late start. We decided to all meet at the HEB in New Braunfels to gather our beer and 16 quart coolers for the trip. By the time we had all met and sluffed everything together, Kelly tells us that while at the Riverwalk the night before, she ran into her boss, who invited himself along for the trip. While the rest of us were rearing to go, Bossman, Larry hadn't even shown up yet. Kelly assured us that she had just spoken to him and that he was on his way.

Twenty minutes later he and his wife finally arrived, and it was quickly encroaching on 1pm. All I could think was, "I should be on my back in the water by now!" But Larry was there, all 6 ft 5 inches, 320 pounds of him, and his wife, who wasn't exactly petite. I have nothing against large people, but their size come into play later on in the story. Unfortunately, his arrival was only the beginning, not the end of the waiting game, as he arrived with nothing. No beer, no cooler, no sunscreen, or a hat. The pair had never been on a river trip, and had no idea what they should bring.

We quickly showed them what we had packed. We had coolers, water guns, cigarettes, Tecate, sliced limes, water, extra lighters, plastic bags, sunscreen, plastic bottle full of vodka, and a few juice bottles. You know, standard river trip inventory. So, Larry had to go inside HEB to grab a few things. It took them half a fucking hour to emerge from the store, another 10 minutes to get in the car and follow us to the launch. Fine, it was all fine, we were on the way.

Jason and I had a brief discussion as to where we were going to launch. I preferred Landa Park, since it was on the Comal and always had plenty of parking. However, Jason wanted to go down the Guadalupe, since he hadn't been down that river in a few years. Unfortunately, since neither of us had been down the Guadalupe in a few years, neither of us knew exactly where to go to launch our tubes into the river. We drove around aimlessly for a few minutes, then I remembered that we could go through downtown Gruene to get to Rockin-R. Well, at 2:30, the traffic in Gruene was horrendous, not to mention we had a caravan of 3 more cars following us. A few wrong turns, and the caravan turned on us. Jason remembered where he wanted to launch from, but by then other members of our caravan had decided to take advantage of the fact that they could SEE the tube launch and left us behind. Jason was getting pretty mad, but he followed them into the cluster-fuck that is Rockin-R.

We had finally arrived. We paid the $20 per car to park, and another 30 minutes later we were ready to get into the water, almost. Once again, Larry and his wife were the last in line, but that's what happens when you rent an inflatable canoe, rather that a tube. That's right a canoe. As Larry caught up with the group and struggled to fit his wide ass into a narrow canoe, he made what I thought at the time was a joke, "They asked me if I could swim and I said yes! He he he he." After a few minutes more, his wife was in the boat as well, however, due to their large sizes, they couldn't fit into the boat they way they were supposed to, like sitting on the seats, so they had to sit in the center, back to back.

The weather was gloomy. The sun had tucked itself in behind the clouds, and it was chilly getting colder. It quickly became apparent that neither of them had ever operated any type of boat before. Both of them were paddling on the right side, but since they were back to back, they just went in circles. We laughed a little and tried to give them some pointers, I guess it was more common sense than anything else. I tried to lighten the mood a little bit by busting out the water cannon. This was a mistake, and I was immediately yelled at. Larry's wife had, within the last 30 days, had BRAIN SURGURY, and was not allowed to get her head or ears wet.

Are you all caught up? Fat couple, little boat, on the river, one can't swim, the other can't get wet, and neither know how to sit in a boat, much less steer it. Can you guess what happens next?

We hit the first set of rapids, and I decide to hang back a little bit to make sure everyone makes it through. It's a little rough, but the boat makes it down and I'm right behind them. The current shoots me past them and they look fine. Leila and Jason are still behind me so I'm not worried; it's just a few little waves and a good while until the next set of rapids. The next thing I hear is "SPLASH!" and a blood curdling, "LARRY!! LARY!!" I turn to look and there is the canoe, empty. I have no idea how these two possible fell out, but they managed it. The current was still moving fast, so I dumped my tube and started swimming toward the bank. Leila and Jason had the same idea. Larry is barely holding himself above water. His arms are like dead wet noodles barely slapping at the water. Not only was he not kidding about not being able to swim, but him was about to drown because he was to lazy to TRY! I've seen people about to drown before, hell, I've done it myself, and when the panic kicks in, you're arms are flailing, slapping at the water, doing anything and everything you can to stay above water. This guy was pathetic. He was about to die because he didn't have the energy to move his arms. Fortunately, Leila was able to grab him and pull his arm over her tube. The two of them floated down a little ways and were able to pull up to and embankment.

Meanwhile, Larry's wife and Jason were still a little ways back. They had recovered the boat, but she was crying and hysterical. She insisted that she be allowed to leave immediately, she was not floating down this river any more. Jason called her down, and explained to her that the only way off the river was down it. There was no place to go but to get back in the boat and ride it out to the end. She finally stopped crying, got back into the boat, and allowed Jason to guide her down to where everyone else was waiting. She immediately started yelling at Larry in Arabic, with a few mixed English words and phrases like, "Why would you do this to me?" "Are you trying to kill me?" and, "This is the worst day of my life!"

We managed to get everyone calmed down, and my wife, Rebecca had reached her limit. She took a paddle, got into the back of the boat and said she was taking them to the end. Zoom, zoom, and they were gone, leaving the rest of us to just float and enjoy the rest of the trip.

Then it started to rain.

On a sunny day, this isn't so bad. However, it was already cold, the water was already faster than I had ever seen it, and the sun had barely made an appearance all day. It this point all I could do was curl up into my tube as best as I could, float, and drink some more vodka. After a few shots I lost everyone else, and after what seemed like an hour, I eventually bumped into a raft full of frat kids. "Are you alright?" One of them asked. "Y-Y-Yeah, I-I-I'm g-g-good." I said. They offered me a beer, a cigarette, and said I could hang on to the back of their raft. Things were looking up.

These kids paddled along with me hanging onto their backside for a little while, and up ahead there was a huge gathering of frat boys and sorority girls rafts. Keep in mind, these rafts are full size white water rafting boats. Each one has from 6-10 kids on each one, and they are having a blast. I'm watching a group of kids a few boats over that has one girl and 6 guys on the boat. The girl takes her top off, leans backwards over the side and wraps her legs around one of the guys. She sits up for a second, grabs him by the hair and pulls his face into her crotch. He eats her out for a few seconds, raises his head, and she immediately sits up, pulls his shorts down and starts giving him head.

This is why I do not float the Guadalupe. I fucking hate the people on that river. Needless to say, as soon as all of this started to unfold, I detached from my boat and continued to float on down the river. Another 45 minutes or so pass and I see Rebecca, Larry, his wife, and Kelly all chilled out on an island. We can see the exit point just a few hundred yards ahead, so we stop and wait for Jason and Leila to catch up. Once we have everyone together, it's time to head in. The current has increased quite a bit, so I hop out of the water and tell Larry to get into my tube. I get into the boat and paddle strait up to the launch. Somehow, along the way, Larry managed to fall out of the tube, so I threw him a life jacket and told him to hang on! I steered to boat up the embankment, helped Larry's wife out of the boat and carried their stinking canoe up to the trailer. I looked back and Larry is just barely getting out of the water, leaving my tube and towel behind. I wanted to kill him.

Instead, I started to cross the bridge to get back to the car. About half way across, watching as other people were trying to get out of the river, it became apparent that the current was increasing a lot. Cops are screaming at frat boys, "Steer to the left!! THE LEFT!" The ones that are to dumb or drunk to listen get their entire boat slammed into the side of the bridge. There were about a dozen cops standing on the side of the bridge pulling kids up and out of the water. We made our way to the cars and started packing up. Larry and his wife asked, "So, what is everyone doing after this?"

"We're going HOME!"