Buffalo River Float Trip

Justin went back home to Arkansas this past weekend to go on a float trip with 4 of his work buddies, along with Kevin, Justin's Dad.  He left last Wednesday & got home Sunday night.  (I've learned that Texans don't understand what I mean when I say "float trip"; for those of you who don't know what a float trip is, it's when you get in a canoe & float the river.)  

They went to the Buffalo River, which is known to be one of the best rivers for floating & scenery in America.  They apparently had a great time, got some great hiking in, saw some gorgeous sights (see pics below!), but encountered quite a bit of rain.  To keep this posting from going absurdly long, here's an overview of the last 18 hours of their float/camp trip:

• A flash flood in the middle of the night on their last night camping
  
• Awakening at 2am to hear 2 of their 3 canoes banging & floating down the river (the canoes were filled with some of their food, all of their drinks & A LOT of gear)
• Watching the river rise about 10 feet in just a few minutes
• Pulling all their gear to higher & higher ground to keep from losing MORE stuff
• Deliberating who would jump in the last remaining canoe the next morning & go for help  (ended up they scratched this idea all together, thank goodness!)
• Ditching all of their stuff they couldn't carry out & starting to hike away from the river, in hopes to find a road or a house to call for help
• Hearing the park service boating up the river & running back to camp to catch them...only to find they were just a few seconds too late
• Hanging out at camp until the park service came back by, gave them a few bottles of water, and called the canoe rental place for help
• Hiking through the woods & fields to get to where the canoe rental guy met them & took them safely back to town  (they ended up going back & getting the rest of their gear they had left behind at camp that had NOT floated away the previous night)

All-in-all, Justin says it was a wonderful trip, not to be marred by the bad luck they had with the flash flood.  After taking a tally of what HE lost in the experience was our own canoe that we had bought a couple of years ago, his GPS, our lantern & the lid to our dutch oven.  Ugh...replacing all of that stuff will not be fun!!  We did get a call yesterday from the canoe rental place that they had finally found their canoe that had gotten swept away along with our canoe, so that was good news.  Guess we have already kissed ours goodbye....

(I just thank the Lord that Justin & all of his friends are safe...)