A 25-foot Jump

by Denise Janus

It was an exciting day on the water because we started going through locks on the river; specifically locks eight and seven.  Most of us had never been through locks before, let alone in a canoe!  Thank you to the people in the locks for letting us through, since they were supposed to be closed but made special arrangements for us!   Today was tiring because we had certain timeframes to make it to each lock. There was no room for long breaks.  After lock seven we could breathe a little bit and finish our 23 miles for the day.  When we got to our take-out point near a little beach, there was a railroad bridge, complete with kids jumping off it. Joe Wallace and Chris Naida really wanted to jump off the bridge too. Since we were waiting for some media to get there they went ahead and made their way over to the bridge. Two of the three guys on the bridge were doing flips into the water, which was really cool!  Chris and Joe made their way to the bridge and as we watched in disbelief leaped off the 25-foot-high bridge!  Seeing that they were okay, the rest of us were drawn to do it.  I can’t believe it, but I did it too!  Then I went back up to do it again!  It’s a pretty amazing free fall and the water was so nice, it really recharged us. We were more fired up to talk to the media! 

For the next two nights we stayed in a hotel for convenience, which was a really nice break from camping. It’s great to have showers!  So a few of us swam for a long while in the hotel pool and then we all got ready to go out to dinner.   And what a feast it was!  We eat a lot to make up for the calories that we burn, and tonight we went into overtime.  We ordered appetizers, and huge entrees. When the waitress said, “are you interested in dessert?”  all of our eyes danced. We immediately, unanimously and loudly expressed our interest in dessert.  Eating has become a sport for us, we take a lot of the day’s stress out on food, and we put a lot of pressure on each other to finish our plates even if we’re beyond full – leaving food on your plate is a tactical error. Eating so much eventually tires us out and we go to bed.