Another year, another successful Float.  The drive down and back was nothing short of tedious.  Yeah, it was cold and rained a bit.  Yes, Carl left nasty food all over our campground and we had to clean up after him.  Sure, Kevin’s hyena laugh drove everyone to the brink of insanity.  But, these are the things that make Float Trip.  The crowd was down quite a bit:  I think we had something like 35 canoes on the Friday float.  But, all the people in our “core group” were there.  All things considered, the weather could have been a lot worse.  I think everyone expected a typhoon, so we were happy to take what we got.  It was a bit chilly on the river, but tolerable… Light jacket weather.  As far as our feed went, it seems that we’ve settled into a rut of mediocrity.  We’ve had worse, but we could do better.  It seems that nobody wants to haul a bunch of food down there, and nobody wants to cook it or clean it up either.  It’s just a big hassle.  Thursday night we had pork tenderloin, Friday night was steak and potatoes.  On the river we had your basic junk-food; snack mix, peanut butter crackers, chips, etc.  Changes are already being planned in this area for next year.  (Zimmerman; keep that sentence in mind, you could hear it referred to in the near future.)  Our gear treated us pretty well.  My new coat kept me warm and dry, which is about all you can ask in a coat.  I bought a new rainsuit right before I left and it served as the perfect “on-river” jacket.  Martin brought a new gigantic “car port” that made a nice dining shelter.  Had it actually poured on us as predicted, it would’ve been even more valuable.    Munkirs’ new ride transported us in luxurious comfort; if there is any comfort to be had in a 5-hour drive.  My favorite piece of camping equipment continues to be my tent heater; it was almost unbearably hot in the tent despite being mid-30’s outside.  Unfortunately it runs out of fuel around 4:00 a.m. and then you wake up freezing cold.  I guess I’ll either have to start staying up later so it gets fired up later, or get up and change the propane canister when it runs out.  Or haul a full-size propane tank down.  I can’t think of anything else that bears relating at this time… I took no pictures so I wouldn’t have to post any.  Somebody threw out a rather humorous nickname for me during one of the rare moments of witticism, but I’m not sure I’m too fond of it so it shall remain private at this point.

Since the weather was so marginal, we headed back to KC on Saturday morning.  We got back sometime late in the afternoon; I went to bed and slept well into Sunday morning.  For our Easter lunch we went to Jeremiah Johnson’s up north.  Doni’s parents met us there, and Ed and Mike came too since they didn’t make it home for the holiday.  I had a 12 oz. sirloin steak… very good.  For dinner Donette made a big pot of spagetti, and we went over to Ed’s.  Mike came over too and we had a nice, quiet, dinner.  Proper way to wind down the weekend.