What’s an Eddy?

Four guys, all kinds of questionable gear, cases of camera equipment, three huge boxes from Poler, more socks than we could ever wear from Stance, a quick stop to see our friends at Brixton and we’d topped off John’s Toyota Matrix to the absolute brim.

The car ride out was the first chance for Ben, Heath and I to catch up, and the first time for John to get introduced to my other friends.  In these situations there’s always a lot of shit talking and a lot of airing other peoples dirty laundry in front of strangers.  At one point I realized John hadn’t spoke about an hour deep into a parade of myths/stories about Ben and I wondered if he’d been reconsidering who he was traveling with.  The part where it got really good is when we all decided the rational thing to do to prepare for this trip was to google “white water rafting terminology”  and to memorize terms we might need to know.  The reason being there were two groups we had to slide by before we got onto the river, and those are the raft rental company and the National Park Service.  The permit was not the problem, we were totally legal, we just got a little nervous that if they found out our level of expertise, then they might pull the plug on the whole thing and send us packing.

“What’s an eddy?” — “I don’t know, what’s it say” –“Eddies can have powerful, swirling currents which can flip boats and from which escape can be very difficult.“–  “Ok cool, we should definitely look out for those.”

Next stop, meet the crew at the rafting company, pack up our supplies, and head to Lees ferry for the drop off.

Side note: When I go home I stay at my Mom’s house in San Diego.  When I brought Heath down from LA to stay the night before the trip he walked into my house and there was a perfectly awkward introduction to my Mom.  “Oh ya, I forgot you guys have never met.  Mom, this is Heath, I’ve known him for 18 years,  he’s now going to go sit on the couch and say nothing for an hour, it’s normal.” He’s not really what you’d call a talker for those who’ve never met him.