KATHERINE GUTTMAN

Friday, June 14 (Flag Day)

7:30 p.m.

It has been raining for about six hours now. I'm slightly damp, in a car with two of the grumpiest men on the planet, stuck in traffic on the George Washington Bridge heading for a kayaking and camping trip. My favorite girlfriend Kirsten has been organizing this for three years. I picked the rainy weekend to go for the first time. I'm incredibly premenstrual, have just spent a joint $200 in the grocery store with these yahoos I call my friends, and I can't feel my right pinkie toe. I'm also a control freak sitting in the passenger seat and have already been warned that my companions intend on stopping to eat. I'm a straight-shot kind of gal when it comes to travelling. I inherited this from my father, along with a lack of patience for everyone except myself.

9:37 p.m.

I should have stayed home. I should have enjoyed the city all to myself. I could use a break from the ten neurotic 20- 30-somethings I call my friends and I feel like I've got a cold coming on. I feel like a city kid, an indoor kid, a delicate wimp of a kid. And that diner food is not sitting well.

11:34 p.m.

I'm exhausted. While some Radiohead CD whines through the car, we bump along a dirt road to our cabins at the Indian Head campsite on the Delaware River. Whether we're in New York, New Jersey, or Pennsylvania I cannot tell you. I don't particularly care.

I have two beers, a couple hits off of a joint, and a meeting with fellow kayakers (most of whom I don't know) for tomorrow's trip. I crash into the Daniel Boone, my cabin for the weekend, with six of my rowdiest guy pals. They get to making the margaritas, I get to passing out in my sleeping bag.

Saturday, June 15 (my 26th birthday, Bill's 34th birthday)

3:30 a.m.

The snoring needs to stop.

4:47 a.m.

Fucking-A. Gidget the Boston terrier, whose redeeming qualities I have yet to recognize, is wheezing like an asthmatic wind-up doll. This just adds to the chorus of snoring that is echoing off the wooden beams. My head throbs and the cabin smells like tequila. I think I'm in hell.

9:00 a.m.

I have identified the five snorers and their unique snores. I will devise appropriate punishment after I lie in my bunk angrily for a bit longer. Happy birthday to me.

9:45 a.m.

With Gidget and snorer number one up and out of the cabin, I shove my feet into my hiking boots and crash towards the door. I need to pee. I need some coffee. I need more sleep. It's no longer raining. Wahoo.

I attempt to get my bearings on the front porch when from my left (around the campfire) comes a chorus of HAPPY BIRTHDAYs and whistles. I salute the crowd and thump up to the restrooms.

Campground restrooms are comforting, quiet. I steal a nap on the toilet and pray for coffee to appear.

10:13 a.m.

It's fucking cold. It's 57 degrees and I'm in a bathing suit, shorts, and layers of thermal underwear underneath a pseudo-waterproof jacket.

Noon

After a pathetic attempt at a safety talk, the disinterested teenager in charge of our group sends us onto the river with less than understandable directions and instructions. I've only used sea kayaks, so I'm a bit worried about my steering. (Sea kayaks have a rudder controlled by foot peddles to aid in steering. River kayaks are steered solely by the boater's use of the paddle.) Two minutes on the water and I'm fine. I chitchat with some folks I barely met the night before and round a corner, excited to view the expanse of the Delaware. (So far it seems to be lean-tos and overgrown backyards. Someone begins humming "Dueling Banjos." Looks like we're a pack of smart-asses.)

12:07 p.m.

NOBODY TOLD ME THERE WERE FUCKING RAPIDS ON THIS RIVER.

12:08 p.m.

My plan, as I watch three kayaks shoot through the rapids, is to just paddle straight into them and keep going. I'm not going to try anything fancy. I'm just going to get through these things as fast and straight as I can.

My boat is knocked around by waves that come at me from all sides. White water crashes across the little bow of my kayak and I throw my weight into the paddle so that I can keep a steady course.

12:10 p.m.

Holy shit that worked like a charm. I barely took on any water. I feel like a million bucks. I'm one of five boats calmly drifting in a wide section of the river, the rush of the rapids behind me. An eagle soars overhead and Jon Land quips from his canoe, "Goddamn that makes me want to mail something." He lights a cigarette and salutes me as he glides past.

2:00 p.m.

I've made it through a bunch of rapids like a goddamned pro. I should be on ESPN2's x-treme sports shows. I've spotted a great blue heron and drank half my Gatorade supply. I've made friends with some very interesting guys on this trip and I'm getting hungry.

7:00 p.m.

We've done 18 miles today. I'm half asleep in a giant kidnapper van on our way back to "base camp" with my head on Bill's shoulder dreaming of a Jacuzzi and a gigantic cheeseburger. I feel like a champ. Bill tells me I smell like a champ and I thank Kirsten for introducing us last summer. She reminds me that I've always wanted a big brother. I glare at Bill and eat my words.

9:30 p.m.

Pay showers were invented by the devil, but least I'm relatively clean and warming up in front of one of the biggest fires I've ever seen. I've already had four cans of Schlitz and it's beginning to rain. The grill is crowded with meat and vegetables and I am still giddy from making it through the rapids.

11:12 p.m.

I'm wearing a stupid birthday hat underneath my pseudo-raingear hood with a noisemaker in hand, eating a piece of cake and a perfectly charred marshmallow simultaneously. Bill is next to me trying to light a joint. I can't stop yawning or sitting serenely with my eyes closed. I keep pretending I'm awake. Apparently, being older does not make this easier.

12:27 a.m.

I've defected. I'm now lying in the quiet of the Davey Crockett cabin. No one is snoring. My former cabin mates in the Daniel Boone yelled epithets at me when I rolled up my sleeping bag, but I feel a good night's sleep is preferable to their idea of solidarity in sleeplessness.

Sunday, June 16 (Father's Day, my Parents' 32nd wedding anniversary)

5:07 a.m.

Who the fuck is snoring?

8:47 a.m.

Goddamned dogs barking.

9:00 a.m.

I am having a healthy breakfast of a gigantic coffee and a salami and cheese sandwich, minus the bread. I'm ready to hit the water. The Daniel Boone shambles out to the fire, half of them grumbling about no sleep, snoring, etc. I smugly wave as I head for the bathrooms. It's sunny and warming up.

Noon

The cabins have been cleaned completely and we're barreling up the road to our drop-off point in the kidnapper van. We all smell of beer, sunscreen, and bug spray. I'm feeling extremely congenial and can't stop saying, "What a great fucking day!" Bill is not so perky, having smoked a lot of weed and drank a lot of beer in celebration of our births.

1:23 p.m.

Floating in my kayak, I drink a Schlitz and gossip with Cliff, who is on his third cigarette of the morning. I remember him "quitting" two years ago when we both worked for a dot-com in Midtown. I am reminded that nobody likes a nag. Nobody likes a funeral either, I counter. I am splashed. Friendships always degenerate into kindergarten antics, I guess. No one seems to be paddling or in any hurry to get down the river. Kirsten and Bill argue over whether their canoe should be called the Mother Ship or the Beer Barge.

2:37 p.m.

Three mild rapids later and it's the Beer Barge. We're getting hungry.

2:40 p.m.

Emmett, a self-described "water rat" and I are sent on lunch-spot recon and paddle like pros around the bend. We search for a place to beach our boats, and instead choose a large outcropping of rocks jutting into a bend in the river. We scamper up to view our new picnic spot and Emmett points to a black head in the water. "Looks like someone's dog is--" Before he can finish, we both realize that black head belongs to a black bear. We start jumping up and down yelling BEAR! BEAR!

2:42 p.m.

I pee on my leg in the woods. I am still city folk.

2:47 p.m.

The cast of Deliverance floats by on a raft and Cliff offers them hummus. The raft men decline and ogle at Kirsten sunning on a rock. We tell them about the bear. They show off their missing teeth.

4:00 p.m.

We are racing the storm that came out of nowhere. A strong headwind and slow water make this leg of the trip hard. The sun glints off the water and I struggle to keep my kayak going forward.

We head for a large stretch of rapids, giddy and silly from a day in the sun with beer and a reprieve from the headwind. We're close to base camp and know that we'll all have to head back to work and school after this. It's the last push. I've lost my pink Gatorade in the rapids and I'm still waiting for it to catch up with me.

5:22 p.m.

Base camp. I start paddling hard to make the sharp turn and pull onto the beach against a strong current. I miscalculate and shoot down the river sideways. Everyone's yelling at me. I throw my weight into my paddle and battle the current enough to crash into some rocks and jump out of the kayak and pull it onto the shore. I make a big show of swigging my beer (which is mostly river water) and hope my embarrassment is masked by my sunburn. Emmett comes over and we carry my kayak to the incredulous looking employees. One of them says, "trouble maker" under his breath. I smile--with all my teeth.

11:13 p.m.

I am in the shower shampooing the smell of campfire out of my hair. I spent for hours in traffic before, on, and after the George Washington Bridge and feel victorious in making it home in one piece. I'm sunburned, a little sore, and very jazzed from a weekend with my friends. I feel like a wave warrior. I feel like a badass. I feel like I definitely do not want to go to work tomorrow.