Last of the Mohicans

[alliso24]

This past weekend I went canoe camping on an island with some Dartmouth folks and Sarah. I reckon it was good practice for the kayak camping trip I have planned for this weekend, which will be somewhat more strenuous. Hanover was beautiful, the Connecticut river was cold and refreshing and the Dartmouth canoe rentals weren't too expensive. Good thing! Because when Sarah and I attempted to rent the cheap-o canoes from UNH, they had already "closed the register" 10 minutes early and we were not allowed to rent. Those jerks. Add to that the idiot cop who insisted I was parking in the no parking zone at the Hannaford store, even though I explained that my parking brake was not engaged and the car was running. To no avail! He demanded that I leave the area, just as Sarah was exiting the store to jump in my car! More jerks. But the island camping was pleasant, our trusty canoe "General Tripper" was steadfast and the river swimming was most excellent. Even though we ran into yet more jerks who were speeding around in their speedboat flipping canoes or (in Brian's case) water-logging them. We overheard the rather biting conversation that happened between the speedboat jerk, a recently flipped canoe-er and a second nice boater who was telling the asshole off for drag racing in the Connecticut. Dinner was yummy and the fire was pretty well fed, but Sarah and I mostly just hung out by ourselves, not quite fitting in (or wanting to) with the Dartmouth crowd. Ha, even though she's an alum. In the morning I made pancakes (which just flies in the face of "keeping things simple" and so pissed off one of our camp mates) and they were delicious! We shoved off in our canoe first (despite being recently berated for still having our tent up while the others had all packed theirs up already) and actually made it back to shore upstream before anyone else! We were definitely the wimps of the group, but we prevailed by leaving early and even made it to ground just before the swift and steady Cocksackie. Again we opted for more swimming, from shore this time. However, the dock didn't open for a good 30 mins so we sat around waiting for the lifeguard to show up and when she did, she immediately soiled the swimming area by lifting the upstream rope and letting all the accumulated flotsam and jetsam float in. Why? Well, from my slight argument with her later I gathered that she thought she was helping, as the crud tended to attract birds. While we didn't see a single bird, we did see quite a lot of floating grass, foam, sticks, leaves and even a corn stalk and an errant water lily. Ah well, these youngsters don't know their asses from holes in the ground. We left for home quite nicely exhausted and sunned. On the way home, Sarah managed to supernaturally channel her future elderly self by falling asleep almost continually. Good times! Photographic evidence below.



"It's just like we're in Last of the Mohicans!"




Also, there was a period of six days where my mom came to visit me in NH. We went to Boston one day and I took some cool pictures here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2205973&id=25004150&l=fccef27e56