Chena River Floating. :)

As we pull up, one car full, two cars full, me and Chad... We begin to wonder, do we even have enough room? As Dr. Henry backs the trailer down into the Chena River and begins to remove the straps holding it in place, Melissa remains seated in the vehicle rolling her eyes repeating, "Chris, what about the frame?"
Slowly, once all the work is done, four more boys meander their way Chad, Melissa, Dr. Henry and I. Ten people, in this, probably, six person raft. "This is going to be an interesting night," were my thoughts...
As we, one by one, make our way into the raft, we remind the boys that it is probably a better idea to distribute the weight evenly, what geniuses it took to all sit on one side, is beyond me. Melissa makes her way in muttering under her breath the fact that the raft was going to buckle without the frame, but no worries, she would be the frame, and she did. She stayed put up front, legs reaching across, keeping the raft from rolling into a taco.
As we begin floating down the river... I laugh at the fact that between the six boys, not a single one knew how to paddle correctly. In fact, rarely were they even paddling at all. Normally, this wouldn't be such a big deal... But it was seven o'clock... and we put in by Pro Music, quite a ways up river from our final destination, the Pump House.
Two and a half hours later, we finally reached the Pioneer Park, aka, Alaska Land Bridge... Where three of our boys got schooled by a nine year old jumping off the bridge. Now this could have been very fun, but minor detail I noticed, was the fact that there most certainly was not enough sun to keep the wet ones warm. The sun may not go down, but it does a great job hiding just enough to keep you a tad bit chilly, even when you're dry!
Upon arrival of the Boatel, we laugh at the fact that we are not even to the point where it took Henry and Melissa two hours to get to the Pump House...
Chad decides to bail, craving beer and a warm bed.
We then begin going, of course, after a good ten minute chat, something that they didn't quite understand could be done as we were making way down river... Two things at once, no way.
At this point.. We've been floating for over three hours... Four boys are shivering, all of our feet are numb.
As we approach Chena Small Tracts Road, Melissa and Henry decide upon running the rest of the way.. Considering it was going to be a little extra work since one of the genius boys left the keys to one of the Vehicles at the pump house in one of the vehicles at the Boat Launch... what he was thinking, I'll never know.
At approximately four and a half hours, the paddle being handed over to be, (Well, I took it...) They finally got the paddling down and we were making head-wind.
As we finally get within visible distance of the Pump House, there stands Melissa with her camera... Dr. Henry at that point, had gone home to put on some warm and dry clothes... Had retrieved the vehicle from down town, and was waiting.
Five hours of floating, an hour and a half of just me and the six boys, the fact that slowly down the river, we were losing people one by one...
It made for an interesting night.
I'd never been more excited to take a hot shower and lay down in my super warm and comfy bed.
7:00-1:00 Wow, really guys? Why'd we put in so far up river??? ;-)