Trip XXV

Wake up you jessies!

It's time to turn your attention to the fall trip and it's a big one.  It will be the 25TH CANOE TRIP for this club and we intend to celebrate it properly.

Over those 25 trips, we've paddled all them rivers in the fall and the spring, in hot weather and freezing cold weather, high water and low water, big rivers and small creeks, from the Ozarks in Missouri to downtown Chicago.  We've camped on high ground and low ground and spent the night in shacks and barns and hunting lodges and road houses and farm houses and urban lofts.  So we were thinking maybe for #25 we should do something really bold and exotic.   Like raft the Grand Canyon together, or paddle into Washington on the Potomac on election day, We thought about the Okefenokee and the Mississippi River trips that have been on our list for a long time.  We thought about moving to Singapore.

Then we asked ourselves:  what would Big Bill Briggs say?

Aw, naw.

Aw, naw.  You go on home, like you belong to do.

So we are going to celebrate #25 on the Duck River just like we belong to do.  And we're going to make it our first ever three-nighter:  Thursday, October 13 - Sunday, October 16.  All three nights on the river.  Each night a different gravel bar.  The cooks have already started planning some extra special feasts:  lobster tails in Big Daddy, prime rib on Proud Mary the water wheel and who knows what else.   There will be musical entertainment nightly.  There will be champagne and speeches.  There may be an appearance by the Buffalo River pole dancers.   On the last night there will be a fireworks show off the jon boat.

Twenty-five trips can age you, and some of us have changed somewhat since trip #1.  Everyone except Mullowney, who looks exactly the same as did at the first put-in.

Here at the RRCC we are going to pay tribute to 25 trips by giving you "THE RRCC TOP 25."   It's a list of the 25 greatest RRCC traditions, innovations and moments in time through the history of the club.  We will reveal them here, one every day for the next 25 days God willing and Big Swan Creek don't rise.  The countdown starts tomorrow.