Day 1

School has been keeping me pretty busy lately. The first weekend back, some friends and I decided to take a trip up to the Buffalo to relax and have some fun. That was last weekend now, and I’m finally getting the time to sit down and write a post about it.

The trip was mainly to reunite my girlfriend, Caden, and I with a friend of ours, Tamami Akagi, who had been away traveling all over the world throughout the summer. (Lucky!)

Brian Cormack is a good friend of ours as well; it was only fitting to invite him along for the trip.

Even if he did try to run me over with his vehicle =D

So, we sat out Friday the 21st to see if we could find some adventure in the good ol’ state of Arkansas; Tyler Bend to be precise.

Initially, we thought the place would be flooded with people. Brian and I took a trip up to Steele Creek in July for his birthday and the amount of people that were there was outrageous. Therefore, he and I were left with our jokes about having to spend the night by two crazed rednecks from Missouri. Let’s just say it left a few open wounds that we didn’t want to pour salt into. So, we were reluctant to arrive and search for a spot of dirt to camp between all the other tents.

To our surprise, Tyler Bend was relatively quiet on Friday afternoon. There weren’t any other people camping in the particular spot that we were at and it was nice and peaceful. That was until later on that night, which I will get back to in a bit.

Upon arriving, we began to set up camp and gathered all the things out of the car and plopped them down onto the table of our campsite. Not soon after we noticed that we had completely forgotten Tamami’s tent and sleeping bag, doh!

We figured things out and made do with what we had. After resting on the bank of the Buffalo for a while we decided to head back to camp and make the best campsite treat in the world, smores!

The smores made for a great snack before settling down to bed.

However, not soon after laying down to finally get some sleep we heard noises of wild animals. I let it pass for a while, but they started fighting and I had to climb out of the tent to investigate. Upon further inspection with the flashlight I finally spotted the little critters that were making all that noise. They were… raccoons! Raccoons, which we would find out the next morning, were also ninjas.

Not only were there Raccoons; the Raccoons had brought friends, Forest Rangers. The Forest Rangers apparently were on edge and a bit peeved about some people shooting off a 22 further down the river. We were put through a short interrogation involving questions about guns, raccoons, ninjas, and ninja raccoons with guns.

The Forest Rangers finally disappeared back into the woods after finally content that we were not selling firearms to wild animals. Whew!

After the little bout with gun toting ninja raccoons and confused forest rangers, we decided sleep wasn’t going to happen anytime soon. Therefore, we set out to take some photos of stars. The stars were simply amazing that night. A cold front was moving through and with it, it brought clear skies. The light pollution at Tyler Bend was null that night, the stars were absolutely beautiful. You could clearly make out the milky way and not only that we noticed a few shooting stars as well.

After viewing the stars for a while and taking some photos of bales of hay, we decided to head back to camp and get some much needed rest for the long day ahead; A day of old ninnies in kayaks, zigzagging canoes and Jaeger drinking river-floating Arkansans.

Yee Haw!

Day 2

Brian, Tamami, and I woke up at the crack of dawn. Tamami and I are morning people and Brian is when there is something cool to photograph. Caden, on the other hand, loathes morning with a vengeance, so she slept in while the rest of us headed off for morning photography adventure.

The cool humid air from the night brought a lot of dew and fog into the valley at Tyler Bend. Of course, fog always makes for a great atmosphere for photography so it was a good time to shoot.

The morning air was a bit chilly, but was quickly heating up to the presence of the morning sun. With the sun came some really cool fog off of the Buffalo River.

The sun also provided some nice rays which I tried to capture in the photograph below.

The fauna and flora enjoyed the morning dew…

After taking some random photos of dew laden flowers, we decided to head up to the old farmstead, Collier Homestead, which lies a bit south of the Tyler Bend Visitor Center.

The Collier Homestead was a small trek off of the road and was a neat place to visit. Unfortunately, I didn’t get many photos that were that great of the homestead itself. However, I did get this snazzy photo of Brian taking an awesome photo (I’m sure,) in his amazing blue shorts.

As we were leaving the homestead we decided to see who could kick a walnut the furthest down the road. Apparently, we all lost because we almost made it but, towards the very end, kicked them into the trees. Fail, seriously.

We made it back to camp safe and sound and packed all the gear, along with Caden, in preparation for the next leg of the journey, the epic Buffalo River float.

We arrived at the Buffalo River Outfitters and were pretty amazed at how steep the prices are to rent a canoe. Of course, we had initial expectations from recent float trips, so that might have swayed our idea of a “good deal.” We ventured down the road to the more established Silver Hill Outfitters and found a much better deal with much nicer people.

The trip began with a bit of uncertainty as Brian and I strapped our bazillion dollar camera gear into mine and Caden’s canoe; it was in a water-proof bag of course, but the uncertainty was still there.

After a while we became more at ease, the water was the perfect level for floating, around 4 feet. The river was moving slowly and so were the 5 million old ninnies that were floating it ahead of us. Seriously, it must have been “old-woman get out and kayak with your dogs as slowly as possible day.”

Don’t get me wrong, everyone should be able to enjoy the Buffalo at their own pace and leisure, but when 5 million old women decide to float in tandem stretching across the whole river, it becomes a challenge for others to move ahead. Therefore, Caden and I did the only thing we knew how, we initiated plan “plow 5 old women over with canoe in order to progress the float trip – plan A” The idea was simple, paddle hard, paddle fast, and see how many old ninnies we could take out in one swift blow.

Everything was going great, at first, until one of the ladies decided to TURN HER KAYAK SIDEWAYS, in front of the incoming 300lb canoe of doom onslaught that was Caden and I. Luckily, for her, she decided that it would be smarter to just move out of the way, and Caden and I were through the old-ninny blockade in one piece.

Tamami and Brian soon followed suit and pushed through the lack of defense that Caden and I had created.

With that obstacle out of the way we were left to our own devices to enjoy the floating at our own pace. Eventually, we took a rest and stopped along a small outcropping that provided the option of sun or shade.

As we were leaving the “rest area,” some fellow canoer’s that day were discussing whether or not they had remembered to bring their Jaeger and Red Bull, Jaeger Bombs anyone? Apparently, they weren’t too afraid of being found out by the National Rangers, because glass on the river is extremely frowned upon. Also, running into fellow canoer’s because you’re wasted is most likely frowned upon as well, I can only imagine.

The people on the water that day were a huge part of the fun that we had. There wasn’t a single point where we were simply tired of floating. It really was an awesome day and one that I, and I’m sure everyone else, would like to repeat in the future. It took all of our breath away.

However, next time were taking revenge, we’re renting Kayaks and donning Garden Party Hats and taking over the river ourselves!

Be Sociable, Share!

•