Whitewater Rafting
By Clint Fero and Tami Olson
On the morning of Wednesday September 27, Nate Clifford, Jed Norman, Dan Stevens, Gabe Hargrove, Clint Fero and Tami Olson all met Pauline at the high school. It was 6:30 a.m. and time to pack and be ready to leave by 7:00. We ended up leaving around 8:00, because Ramona was late. We finally left and set out on a three and a half hour trip. We arrived at Jay Cooke State Park around 11:30 am. At that point, everyone piled out of the van. We unpacked everything and got settled into camp, when we realized we had only brought one tent! Pauline and Ramona shared that tent while everyone else slept outside on a tarp.
After about an hour of unpacking we all decided to take a hike on the trails around the park. We hiked for about three and a half hours. Then we went back to camp to make some supper, and get ready to go to the planetarium at the U of MN at Duluth to watch a show on stars and planets. Unfortunately we were about 15 minutes late and the doors were locked, so we ended up walking around the campus. Then we found the pool room and played a few games of pool, while Pauline and Ramona played a game of backgammon. We took off from there and went back to camp, to sit around the fire. A couple of hours later Clint heard a noise. Jed shined his flashlight to see what was going on, and we saw two raccoons. One ran away and the other just stood there, eating our noodles from left-over spaghetti in the fire pit next to us. Everyone tried to scare it away. We didn’t even faze him. He just went right back to eating. Finally his food supply ran out and he went away. One by one we all went back to bed.
The next morning after Pauline woke everyone up, we had breakfast. We went into town, and had a scavenger hunt. We had to go around town and ask people questions about their history. We all had to come up with a business card, a book of matches and an egg. Everyone was successful in the end and we all had fun. From there we had lunch, then went Whitewater Rafting. We set out with two boats: Dan, Jed and Gabe were in one raft and Clint, Nate, Tami and Ramona were following close behind. Pauline could not come with us, because of her current condition (she’s pregnant). The rafting lasted between two and three hours, and only one person managed to fall out. After we watched Dan and Gabe pull Jed back in the raft, we all tried harder and focused on staying in the raft and not going into cold water. We only lost one paddle, which we found right away with Ramona yelling, “Grab that paddle!” She herself ended up pulling it in. After a while we got used to moving the raft and following the instructions as we were told. Going down one small drop and through four rapids, we all had a lot of fun. That night when we were back at camp everybody kind of went their own way, trying to see as much as possible before we left the next morning.
The next morning Pauline treated us to pancakes, milk and Kool-Aid. Everyone went their own way again to explore one more time, before going back. Dan found a cat and wanted to bring it back with him, but of course Pauline said “no”. With a little bit of a fight we all piled into the van for the last time and came back to school.
The three day trip was a lot of fun and we all said we would go if the trip was offered again!