gorillamel
Dirty Blonde
Day 4 (last day!)
dawn
sunrise over the Doll's House
Today is the day. The day I leave. The day I get picked up by a jet boat and return to reality. But of course, pick up is not until ~1030/1100h and I wake 0530h. Lots of time to fart around. Unfortunately, no paddling. Drat. I was already missing it. Since the day before was Memorial Day and I did not pay my respects to the fallen, I decided to do the Murph Challenge WOD (Workout of the Day for you non-crossfit people). I brought my Murph patch with me on this trip. I laid it on the beach. Lathered myself with sunscreen. Turned on The Backstreet Boys on my phone and proceeded to Murph the **** outta that beach. I modified my workout in that I used a large piece of driftwood and did arm lifts (100) rather than the 100 pullups. I also did 200 crunches/leg lifts rather than run 2mi. I was not going to run 2mi in approach shoes in loose sand with cacti and in the blazing sun.
workout time!
By the time I was done, I was covered in sand and sweat and felt great. I wandered around some more. Laid on Naked rock some more. Ate my last Mountain House. Cleaned the inside of my kayak (as required by Tex pre-pick up). Unloaded the kayak. Took down my camp site and generally enjoyed my singular semi-nude state alone on the river listening to it rage past me.
And then I heard it. The buzz of a motor. My jet boat! They went by saying they were picking up paddlers farthest first. In the meantime, I put on more clothes and ardently awaited. They pulled up and the boisterous men were aboard. They saw me and all started chanting my name and cheering and lifting beers to me. Since I had such few items, they put my kayak on the back across the rear of the boat and all my gear in a storage bin/bench up front. The boisterous men gave me a beer and we were off! I left my camp spot. I watched it go by. I was going to miss it.
my welcoming party: the boisterous men
going to the next pick up spot
We picked up a total of 5 separate spots. The jet boat was packed full of people and boats. The canoes went on the roof frame, and kayaks in the back crosswise. We picked up the two kayakers from NM farther up. We also got the annoying teenage boy group, an older couple who seemed pretty ************. They had been on the river 5 days and she appeared to have MS. They do trips like this every year. How awesome is that?! What amazed me more than anything was the amount of gear and trash most of the groups used and generated. Holy ****. Seriously. A metric ****ton of stuff! I saw that and just wanted the boat to turn around and take me back to my camp spot. I did not want to come back to society. Such a wasteful superfluous society.
look at all that ****?!
and even more ****. Look at the filled garbage bag! I filled a small ziploc baggy with my trash, most of which were the 2 beer cans from boisterous men
The NM couple gave me another beer. And we rode the jet boat up the Colorado River for 2h, stopping in Lathrop Canyon to go potty (at a real pit toilet!) and ending a Potash boat ramp. At Lathrop, when I stood up, I realized I was drunk. ****. Two beers and I was done for. The next hour of riding, I made sure to sober up and enjoy the scenery. Which was hella excellent. I think my next trip may be down this section of river: Moab to Spanish Bottom. What say you? Wanna join? 
Pics along Colorado River from The Confluence to Potash boat ramp:
potty break!
Today is the day. The day I leave. The day I get picked up by a jet boat and return to reality. But of course, pick up is not until ~1030/1100h and I wake 0530h. Lots of time to fart around. Unfortunately, no paddling. Drat. I was already missing it. Since the day before was Memorial Day and I did not pay my respects to the fallen, I decided to do the Murph Challenge WOD (Workout of the Day for you non-crossfit people). I brought my Murph patch with me on this trip. I laid it on the beach. Lathered myself with sunscreen. Turned on The Backstreet Boys on my phone and proceeded to Murph the **** outta that beach. I modified my workout in that I used a large piece of driftwood and did arm lifts (100) rather than the 100 pullups. I also did 200 crunches/leg lifts rather than run 2mi. I was not going to run 2mi in approach shoes in loose sand with cacti and in the blazing sun.
By the time I was done, I was covered in sand and sweat and felt great. I wandered around some more. Laid on Naked rock some more. Ate my last Mountain House. Cleaned the inside of my kayak (as required by Tex pre-pick up). Unloaded the kayak. Took down my camp site and generally enjoyed my singular semi-nude state alone on the river listening to it rage past me.
And then I heard it. The buzz of a motor. My jet boat! They went by saying they were picking up paddlers farthest first. In the meantime, I put on more clothes and ardently awaited. They pulled up and the boisterous men were aboard. They saw me and all started chanting my name and cheering and lifting beers to me. Since I had such few items, they put my kayak on the back across the rear of the boat and all my gear in a storage bin/bench up front. The boisterous men gave me a beer and we were off! I left my camp spot. I watched it go by. I was going to miss it.
We picked up a total of 5 separate spots. The jet boat was packed full of people and boats. The canoes went on the roof frame, and kayaks in the back crosswise. We picked up the two kayakers from NM farther up. We also got the annoying teenage boy group, an older couple who seemed pretty ************. They had been on the river 5 days and she appeared to have MS. They do trips like this every year. How awesome is that?! What amazed me more than anything was the amount of gear and trash most of the groups used and generated. Holy ****. Seriously. A metric ****ton of stuff! I saw that and just wanted the boat to turn around and take me back to my camp spot. I did not want to come back to society. Such a wasteful superfluous society.
The NM couple gave me another beer. And we rode the jet boat up the Colorado River for 2h, stopping in Lathrop Canyon to go potty (at a real pit toilet!) and ending a Potash boat ramp. At Lathrop, when I stood up, I realized I was drunk. ****. Two beers and I was done for. The next hour of riding, I made sure to sober up and enjoy the scenery. Which was hella excellent. I think my next trip may be down this section of river: Moab to Spanish Bottom. What say you? Wanna join? 
Pics along Colorado River from The Confluence to Potash boat ramp:
