Sunday, March 26, 2006

Tips on floating Adobe Creek



I've lived alongside Adobe Creek for 26 years and never once had the poor decision-making skills needed to try to float down it in a raft, until today. Given that there is a lack of literature available on how to do this, I thought I would share some advice:

  1. Make sure you have caps for all of the valves in your raft. Barring that, have an extra sock handy.
  2. Even though the bushes have no blackberries this time of year, they still have thorns. Wear a rainjacket and long pants, and don't cry if your raft pops. (Thanks to Arcia Dorosti, a pioneer in this field, for notifying us of that one ahead of time). You will also want to bring a paddle in order to deflect thorns.
  3. Do not attempt to ride in a 210-pound-capacity raft along with a 235-pound Mormon, even if you did win the raft at Grad Nite eight years ago.
  4. Put in towards the downstream end of Shoup Park rather than at Redwood Grove, unless you don't mind the the embarrassment of getting stuck on a dam in front of dozens of little kids who will warn you about the big scary dog downstream (urban myth by the way: parents have warned of a "big scary dog" downstream from the park for years, but I've never met anyone who has seen one there).
  5. Shower twice. Once for the poison oak and another time for the raw sewage . The order is up to you.
  6. Always ride headfirst.
  7. And, most importantly, never admit what a failure the idea was. If you can not ignore that fact, at least try to hide it from your grandmother.

4 comments:

Kathy Schrenk said...

Is this some way of celebrating your birthday?

Nemesis of Evil said...

Yeah, let's go with that.

Anonymous said...

So there was a Jew, a Mormon, and a half-Indian floating down a creek...

I wish I could come up with a good joke about it.

-Sigua

Nemesis of Evil said...

All right Sig, you asked for it. The first ever Nemesis of Evil Eskimo-friendly punchline contest. Kind of like a lowbrow version of the New Yorker's reader captions.

So, go ahead, best punchline wins Joc's five bucks, or perhaps something cooler.