#22 The Green Mule

#23 Knee-High Rubber Boots
#24 Phil's Warehouse
#25 The Nine Man Log

Some of you may question this pick, especially if you've ever tried to take it down a very shallow river.  But I think you are forgetting all that it has done for you.

It has hauled bulky loads....

And loads of bulky people...

It has found its own Nine Man Logs when we had none...

Carried the advance kitchen team downstream when they needed extra time....

Scouted miles and miles of rivers and found many excellent gravel bars that you have slept on...

And more than once it has performed it's original function flawlessly:  bringing late arrivals safely down the river at night, which is an RRCC adventure unto itself.

Sometimes we suspect people come late just for the ride.  We should start selling tickets.

#23 Knee-High Rubber Boots

#24 Phil's Warehouse
#25 The Nine Man Log

You may think rubber boots are the norm, but that's just because you've been hanging around the RRCC so long.    In the rest of the boating world nobody wears these.  Serious paddlers not only look down their noses at tall boots, they consider them irresponsible and dangerous - under the theory that if you turn over they will fill up with water and be like anchors on your feet.

On the risk/reward spectrum - and not being very serious about that kind of thing anyway - we think they're well worth it.   If we turn over, we just stand up and hope no one was looking.   And with the way we travel, someone is bound to be paddling nearby to rescue you (which also means someone was bound to be looking).

Knee-high rubber boots are now pretty much part of the RRCC uniform.  It's a good feeling to stand next to your boat in a foot of water with nice dry feet and an ice cold drink.

 

Or does it have something to do with the joke about why shepherds wear knee-high Wellies?

(For a place to put the sheep's hind legs)

#24 Phil's Warehouse

#25 The Nine Man Log


God we miss this place.   Not just because it was covered, climate-controlled storage for our beloved canoe trailer.   It was a mad scientist's bizarro Alice in Wonderland of warehouses that actually made us look forward to going to Cool Springs twice-a-year and that is saying a lot.    Heckometers and Erlenmeyers, burners and beakers, geiger counters and rat grinders.   You never knew what you would find and either did Phil.

We also have fond memories of doing "what the abstractly alliterative military schedules used to call materiàl maintenance" there.  And the time we pimped out the jon boat and then sat by the great fireplace at Sportsman's Lodge (the only other reason to go to Cool Springs).

It was the closest thing we ever had to a Club House.  Sadly, the only thing we have to remember it now is the Large Impingers box, but it still goes with us on every trip.

#25 The Nine Man Log

The original Nine Man Log was on the island at the mouth of Cedar Creek on the Duck River, fall of 2005.  It didn't hurt that we had Big George back then.  When he got tired of waiting sometimes he turned Nine Man Logs into One Man Logs.

Finding and moving the Nine Man Log is an important team building exercise for the Club.  Even more so if it starts out as standing timber.  It also usually marks the end of the paddling day and the beginning of the merrymaking.  

  

Over time, the term Nine Man Log has come to mean any enormous piece of firewood, or even a big pile if it appears that a truly epic fire is on its way.

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.