Thu, Nov 22 2007 - Thanksgiving Santa Fe River Trip (View Original Event Details) Trip Leader(s): Lee Harris, Nick Gwinn Participants: Lee Harris, Nick Gwinn, Phil 'Foz' Parkerson, Kelly Harris, Emily Schutt, Denise Millon, Julie Peters, Steven Peters, Cyndi, Desiree, Adam Bilinski, Andy Altman

Write Up:
Not sure where to start on this one. We all had a great time canoeing. The first day we went up river to camp on State lands. We had a Great Thanksgiving Dinner, Turkey, potatoes, dreesing, filled my belly up. Some of the group decided to do a little night canoeing. The second day was the hardest, ther were some low spots in the river we had to drag our canoes through. We made landfall at Naked Ed's just before dark. My grouped cooked the second night, Pasta, Veggies, Turkey Sausage, salad. Burp! Oops. Naked Ed is a cool old guy that is the caretaker of Lily Springs. He runs around in a loin cloth most of the time although the weather was a touch colder so he was dressed in jeans when we made camp around dark. Google him sometime if you want to know more. Once again a few of us did some nighttime canoeing. Our 3rd day was designed to be the laziest. We lashed 3 or 4 canoes together to create the "Floatilla", a large nonresponsive jumble of canoes that floats down the middle of the river, music playing beverage drinking, and friendship making, the only way to canoe. We drifted down to Ginnie Springs a huge spring where you can even cave dive, licensed of course. Our last night back at Ed's the girls decided to try down hill cart running. Naked Ed has a cart there he tows firewood around in, I guess the girls watched to much soapbox derby. After about 30 minutes I had to give it a try. It was fun. Headlamp on, limited steering down a path down a hill to the bottom where the fire was built, what can be more fun than that, of yeah it holds more than 1 so you get to take a friend with you, lol. Dinner that night was some Yummy Salmon followed by not so yummy shots of Yukon Jack and Baileys, no we didn't mix them together although some did shots of each right after one another. Cyndi wins the best shooter award 3 shots of Yukon back to back, all the guys were like, DAM! you must be kidding! We're not worhty. We're not worhty. Our last day was up early to make it to the take out point. After a quick breakfast and packing we headed back out and stopped again at Ginnie Springs fro just a bit. After Ginnie we had to run a class 1-2 rapid. Most of the canoes did fine, Kelly and I somehow sturck yet another rock underwater, this spun us around right at the begining of the rapid so we decided (had no choice) to run it backwards, kind of fun I would reccomend to all. While we were spinning around we got a great view of Andy and Cyndi comming towards us or should I say the island in the middle of the river that the rapids ran around. I think Andy was still drunk from the night before since he steered the canoe right into the middle of the island and up on to it. Kelly and I laughed as we tumbeled backwards through the rapid. A few minutes later Andy also ran the rapid backwards, once agin No choice involved. Nick wasn't taking nay chances on this section he grabbed his safety helmet (Spaghetti strainer) to wear through the rapids. About 30 minutes later we were at the takeout where we loaded up and headed back to our cars. A great trip where all had fun.


Picture links:

Cyndi's Pictures

Emily's Pictures

Adam's Pictures

Kell's Pictures

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