Floating Through Life

(Left to Right: Geoff, Chris, Alex, Jesse, Matt & Rick)

SLOW DOWN! MAX SPEED 1 MPH

Alex Strong and I have been friends for the past 12 years, dating back to our first meeting at a soccer camp hosted by Virginia Tech for players and recruits interested in playing for the Hokies. Freshman year we both roomed in suites on alternating floors at Tech's "premier" dorm Cochrane, before living together in off-campus housing for the next three years. He has always been one of my closest friends and now, 12 years later, I find myself floating three miles of the the Shenandoah River with him and four of his friends/roommates from Arlington, VA.

For those unfamiliar with the Shenandoah Valley, the Shenandoah River is a lazy meandering stretch of water that flows north along the Virginia/West Virginia border and serves as one of the main tributaries to the Potomac River. It is also famous for being one of the East Coast's premier tubing rivers and recently played host to six guys seeking a day of respite on an extended holiday weekend.

Our day of relaxation was spent lazily floating past open farms, private estates and acres upon acres of untouched National Forest. The rapids were infrequent and mild at best, exactly what we were looking for on a day where our highest priority was trying to avoid spilling any beer on our inner tubes. On certain stretches we would connect the rafts and form a huge 'raftilla' to help slow our pace and make sharing the Lays potato chips a little easier. We passed the occasional local, who for the most part were celebrating the 4th a day early by launching fireworks at each other in an attempt to catch them; seriously.

As promised, Alex delivered us to our campsite by 6:30 pm, providing us will ample time to set-up our camp and indulge in a feast of freshly prepared chicken fajitas, complete with an array of accouterments, before the sun set. By night fall we had the camp set and a fire blazing, just in-time for our rowdy neighbors to begin an aerial fireworks display that would rival that of New Years in our nation's capitol. By midnight our last piece of timber had been sacrificed to our smokey blaze and the rave at the adjacent campground, complete with a dueling redneck engine revving competition, had subsided leaving us with only one option; sleep.

Until Tomorrow.