Opening weekend FLASHBACK!

In honor of opening weekend, I have been reminiscing on other memorable starts to the season since this one was fairly simple. One of the most CRAZY starts was the "trip from hail."

As a rule, we take plenty of precautions in order to avoid everyday mishaps.  We always check the weather before we leave the house in the morning but who knew that checking it in the morning would never be enough. 

It all began as a normal day: I managed to sleep through the yells telling me to wake up, only to jump out of bed and run to the car-avoiding all loading of boats and unnecessary morning cheerfulness.  We met our excited groups of paddlers and set them on their merry way down the beautiful and peaceful Catawba River.   While they paddled their hearts out, the crew (my parents, brother, boyfriend, and myself) had brunch in Fort Mill and I managed to get some ice cream money from my parents and ran by Maggie Moo’s on the way back to work.

Everything went as planned for the next few hours.  The first few groups came in and everyone thoroughly enjoyed their trips.  We loaded the boats and waited around for the last group of friends to come in.  We only waited for an hour or two but in that small amount of time, everything became one golf ball sized disaster.  We were taken hostage by Mother Nature at River Park. 

First there was thunder and lightning.  We all got in our big van known as Frank/Bertha to keep away from the storm and as we were all hiding away we heard a huge tree fall just on the other side of the river.  This ignited panic in my mom and little brother.  Neither one is a huge fan of storms, especially my mom.  Needless to say, she did not want her children getting out of that van until the sky was completely clear (she lost that battle, as you’ll soon find out).  As the cracking of trees became more frequent, we proceeded to move this massive van and trailer about 3 feet in every direction trying to maneuver our way as far from the huge, falling trees as possible.  This was a failure considering we ended up under a huge light/electricity pole and under some more huge trees.  But hey, at least we gave it a shot. 

The story only gets more exciting from here.  The sky becomes eerily dark and all of a sudden everything gets very loud.  It turns out that loudness was caused by golf ball sized hail bouncing off the van.  This wouldn’t have been so bad if we were sitting in the safety of our home with no reason to venture outside but that wouldn’t make for a very good story, would it?  So, here we are: everyone sitting in the big van dreading the moment we have to get out to do our job when the hail gets a lot louder and bigger.  Just then we see orange blobs out in the water meaning we are going to have to sacrifice our bodies to make sure all of our customers get out of the water safely.  My parents dashed out of the van to go meet them at the water while the hail is pounding down and leaving immediate bruises.  My mom yells at me to stay in the van and watch my brother but I pretend I don’t hear her and run down the hill to the water with a life jacket to protect my head. I have to say everything after that was just an intense, chaotic blur.  People were running around, my parents yelled at anyone in sight telling them to get in the van, and my brother hid under a pile of life jackets while whimpering in the back of the van.    

After literally being attacked by hail and wind, only half of our group was back.  We were all huddled in the van when it all started again.  The orange boats appeared upriver and the hail came crashing down.  I thought there was no way we could have this bad of luck that each time we had to get out, it conveniently started to hail again.  But of course, it did.  Ding, ding, ding.  Time for round two.

There was just as much yelling and panic as the first round only this time the hail kept getting bigger and bigger.  Everything kind of just went crazy and people were running and panicking and then all of a sudden it was over again! I am convinced the weather was bipolar that day.  It doesn’t stop there though.  After everyone was safely in their cars and leaving the park, we made the untimely choice to load boats and get the heck out of there.  Uh, oh.  We got out of the van which is apparently the signal for Mother Nature to begin round three.

We just decided to push through this time and threw all of our boats in the trailer as fast as possible.  I don’t think we’ve ever loaded a trailer as fast as we did that day.  So, what out of this crazy day stuck with me? Well, here’s the run-down:

Most memorable quotes of the day:

1.     “God hates us!” –My terrified 10 year old brother (Don’t worry, he quickly regained faith when we made it home alive.)
2.     “Can y’all just act like adults and tell us everything is going to be ok?” –My equally terrified boyfriend
3.     “That was gnarly!”—A very surprised and thankful customer
4.     “We just got in a fight with Mother Nature and she beat the crap out of us.” –A text message my dad sent to his best friend
5.     “GET IN THE VAN!” –My paranoid, and rightly so, mother (This is in all caps because she was literally yelling it to everyone, mostly me.)
6.     “I quit. For real this time.” –Me, of course
7.     “I love this job.”—My enthusiastic boyfriend

Casualties of the day:

1.     My dad (JWB): 2 huge knots on his head and a lost pair of reading glasses.
2.     My mom (JCB): A swollen finger.  She also gained the reputation of “crazy lady who ran around yelling at people to get in a van.”
3.     The brother (W): He never left the van.  He did kiss the floor as soon as he got home though.
4.     The boyfriend(R): An exact mark of a piece of hail on his back.  Also, if you find a camo Croc shoe in the river, it probably belongs to him.
5.     Me (K) A bruise on my stomach (How does one even manage to get hit there?!) A bruised ego: Apparently my shorts get very loose when they are soaking wet and I my pants fell down in front of the van full of people.  I promise I’m not kidding. That really did happen and it was probably the most embarrassing thing ever.

I     I know it sounds like I am exaggerating in this story but I can promise that this day was just as crazy as it sounds.  I guess we can just put it down in the book of life as a lesson learned the hard way.

Let's hope for a safer start to the season this year!