...to have the summer of my life

                Even though this summer has been different in every way imaginable from my ‘typical’ summer, it ends just the same; cold nights, colder mornings and trees hinting of fall with their premature color changes. Of course, ‘busy’ is used again to describe the last few weeks I’ve spent up here but this time it’s been a different type of busy. Guiding has finally become a more relaxing activity and I’ve been able to focus more on kayaking and spending time with the people I’ve met up here in Maine. As the summer progressed I was able to see my skill at navigating the Kennebec get sharper day by day and it makes me realize how outright awful I was at this guiding thing at the beginning of the year. Like, first year guides suck, I was no exception. But now I have a handle on it, (I think) and I can worry more about making a funny face for the camera, than trying to avoid Good-Bye hole with a boat full of camp kids.

                Two big things happened this past week. One being “Guide Olympics” and the second being a trip to Montreal that was utterly amazing.

                Guide Olympics? Yep, Olympics for guides, not even kidding. We had thought about making a team and entering but sadly finding six team-mates was easier said than done for Windfall so we watched the games instead and made mental plans for next year. Basically, it’s an evening of fun for guides of all companies (except Northern Outdoors(because they suck)) to get together and compete in various events such as… The boat stack, the trailer stack, the guide flip and of course… the beer chug. It was an eventful night for sure, I haven’t been around so many drunk people since UNH, but Windfall’s sober presence was felt in the community. I guess Windfall had never been to Guide Olympics before, ever, so this year Mason and I made sure we got our team there and we had an excellent night. Next year though, we’re competing!

                The other big event was Mason, Mitch and I’s trip to Montreal to surf the Lachine rapids. Basically, we drove 9 hours round trip to surf one wave, and it was so worth it. We left Jackman at 11pm and made it to Magog QB at 2am, found a campsite and slept under the stars with our boats close at hand. The next morning we drove to Montreal and started kayaking around 9am on this one wave called Big Joe. It was the perfect surf wave. A behemoth wall of smooth water that kayakers dream of surfing. It was such a sick wave that there was actually a stand up surfer surfing it. Like, on a surfboard. It’s hard to describe how cool this place was and we spent almost 9 hours lapping the wave and hitting it as many times as possible. Hopefully I’ll be able to make a quick edit from the GoPro shots we got during the day. Oh, and a sidenote, this section of rapids opened up into a bay so if you had to pull your skirt, you would have to swim for three miles... Kind of scary? Yes!

This was our campsite, no tent required

                I know that the amount of detail in this post is lacking but its hard to describe everything on paper, or, computer. If you really want to experience what you're reading you need to come to Maine! Yes, the summer is over, but if its God’s will I’ll be here next summer and those who didn’t make it up will have a second chance :)

                So that is it for the summer portion of the blog. I want to thank everyone who made this dream summer a reality. Thank you Michelle for Facebooking me and putting the idea of this summer on the table, it was the best summer of my life on so many levels. I know that I will be leaving Jackman Maine a stronger person physically (Have you seen the pictures of me on the river? I’m ripped! Jk) but more importantly I’ll be leaving a stronger person spiritually. I’ve been able to make so many new friends and acquaintances and work for an incredible organization. Thank you parents, grandparents, friends, bosses, coworkers and everyone else who encouraged me, this summer rocked.

                The next portion of this blog will be London. Nate and I will be stepping on a plane this Wednesday and heading to Europe for an entire semester. I’ll be leaving Jackman Maine (population 900) and entering London (population 8,174,100), but I can’t wait.

                So long for now!

...to do some overdue updates, and break a window with my face

I think now would be an appropriate time to officially put the FAFSA fiasco in the rear view mirror and re-focus myself on writing about my summer again. The last few weeks have been busy, and that is not an understatement. Part of the reason I've been unable to gather my thoughts onto the internet is that I haven't had any time to do so! It's been cray cray up here in Jackman. Rafting, kayaking, shuttling and hunting geese have kept me quite occupied. Geese you say? Well... I'll get to that.

First off, have you ever been mudding in a 15 passenger van? I'm going to creep out on a bendy limb here and say... probably not. Another part of our duties here is to do some shuttling for local (or not so local) organizations. Sometimes this includes dropping kids off and then picking them up elsewhere a few days later, or, in this case, driving them to an extremely remote place in the middle of the woods, dropping them off and leaving them behind. This shuttle was one of those. Kyle and I packed two 15 passenger vans full of screeching children, and chaperones that acted as such, and drove them on one of the worst roads I have ever seen to their destination. When I say "worst roads" I honestly mean it. I think that they built them near bogs so they would become purposefully washed out, and here I am in a massive van driving through 3ft deep mud bogs with a bunch of kids bragging about their respective hickies! Gah!

Another exciting thing we did up here was what we call, a Night Run! Ernie, the man who runs the dam, gives the rafting community a chance to go rafting in the dead of night on the Kennebec. We loaded up on a bus filled with more beer cans than people (not ours of course) and headed to the dam at 10pm equipped with flashlights, glowsticks, RedBull and yes lots and lots of alcohol (once again, not ours). The run, as you can probably imagine, was crazy. You couldn't see anything, nothing, literally nothing. BUT IT WAS AWESOME!! Seth guided our boat and we attempted to surf everything in the whole river and we even flipped the boat. It was so fun, even after losing three paddles. At one point we were surfing in this hole and I was able to get out of the boat and stand on the rock that was creating the surf-hole in the middle of the river. From the rock, which was submerged in about 4-6" of water, I spun the boat around and around. Now, you probably have no idea what I'm talking about but if you do than you know, it was sick.

Side not, I just broke my boss's office window with my face. It was really an accident. I was looking at the sky, then I shifted my gaze down towards the parking lot to say hello to Tyler and my face smashed the glass and broke it. I patched it with scotch tape, there is no way he will notice. Well, he could read this, or, actually that will probably be the first thing he notices in the morning anyway.

Alright! This is it for now... except for these pictures of me kayaking the Kennebec...

I also think I broke my big toe today, a paddle landed on it. It really hurts and its all black and blue. 

Alright!! I'll write again soon!!