Meowwww

I can't say that too many of my adventures in New York began with an hour long drive to a ranch, followed by an hour long caravan to a cabin, followed by a half hour long continuance to another cabin... and this was just the beginning.

You see, the evening before, Lauren and I went to Wal-Mart to purchase inner tubes for the 'Meow Mixer,' a float trip organized by some several dozen adventurous rancher women, instead, due to the last minute approach, we bought some neon pink rafts. If at any point we really believed that these would be sufficient, we were out of our minds.

The Mixer’s destination was a cabin on a ranch next to the Smith River somewhere in Montana and after a lovely potluck lunch (I must have eaten ten times my body weight in delicious dishes) it was tubing time. Our friend Rose had arranged for Lauren and I to borrow some real tubes which was a godsend because the rafts would never have made it down the river… float trip is a funny word because you only really float for about ten percent of the time, the rest is maneuvering little rapids and avoiding what Lauren referred to as #giantrockdeath.

You’d think social networking would be more prevalent in New York but Twitter ruled that Saturday on the Smith River.

You see my friend Lauren was not mentally prepared for the actualities of a float trip, and I cant say I was either but she had the misfortune of taking a tumble over the first rapid area and falling off of her tube head first into the Siberian water. From then on it was Twitter everything… #rapiddeath, #giantrockdeath, @pres.Jacks (as we pretended to be Lewis and Clark making our way out west… I don’t think ‘explorers’ will be our next profession). The two of us held on to ends of a stick as to not get away from each other which ultimately became a sort of game in our exploration dreams.

An hour into the trip we finally reach the cabin again and stumble out of the river, fighting the currents hold over us and thanking god for some kind of solid land... while we were shouting hash-tags into the air I realized how beautiful the scenery up here is and how people take it for granted, showing these sights in movies and making it so no one ever need step out of their house to take in such wonders... well step out of the house my friends because you wont have adventures like this just sitting on the couch.... yeah, Brokeback Mountain may have the Art Direction but nothing beats screaming #giantrapiddeath and freezing your butt off while looking at the pristine pastures above you.