Starting to feel like home

Today was Johnny-Scout Day, here at the base. And, can I just say, it was a complete blast! For those who don't know, Johnny-Scout day is a day when all of the return river guides behave as the worst scouts they've ever taken down the river and do all of stupid things a scout has every done--all in one day. My friend Jamie and I (we're the only female guides this year, and we're both return guides) actually paired up in a canoe instead of riding gusto (by ourselves, in our own canoes, like everyone else) so we could really play off each other as we were going down the river.
It was great! We told all of the guides that my name was Teena Tonner and her name was Tonna Teener. And then we switched names half way through the day--just to throw them off. I wore bright green goggles on my head all day, and "Tonna" wore a superman tank top over her life jacket. Basically we were awesome.
The key was to do things that we had actually seen and had scouts do to us. It was great. The highlights include swamping our canoe immediately after we launched. The put-in is located just before Wilson bridge, and we use a shallow eddy area right in front of the pile-on to launch. We did what at least one scout pair does every week and hit the pile-on immediately and swamped. It was hilarious.
We sang obnoxious songs all the way--with the crucial "just around the riverbend" a few too many times--and kept telling our guide that "When I was here last year, the guides let us take whatever channel we wanted," or "Last year the river guides didn't yell as much...maybe you shouldn't yell at Johnny and Edwin when they swamp their boats." Our guide got so frustrated with us, it was hilarious. But I feel kind of bad about it now. Kind of.
And I lost my life jacket. Don't worry, I had my own in my dry bag, and the jacket I lost was one that they were throwing away anyway cus it was torn. But I had a scout leader lose his once on the river, so I had to do the same thing. That's what Johnny-Scout Day is all about! When my guides realized I didn't have one on, they flipped. They couldn't figure out what to do about it, til I finally pulled my own jacket out.
But my favorite moment was after lunch when we got ahead of the group and Jamie dropped me off at a log jam in the middle of the river, and then kept paddling downstream. It took the guides about 45 minutes to find me and rescue me. It was great! I just sat there chilling in the middle of the river, singing to myself and letting my feet dangle in the current. But then I started freaking out when I saw them, pretending I was barely balanced on it. They were actually kind of nervous for me, til they realized there was a huge calm eddy right behind the logs. But still. It was funny.

Anyway, enough of my antics that I'm oh-so-proud of. I just kind of wanted to share that being on the river this week really brought me back. Last week it didn't quite feel the same as it did when I was here last year, simply because it was so snowy and cold the whole week. But this week the sun came out and the water warmed up (and went up to 19,800 cfs, by the way! Charles, you would LOVE it. The waves at Junkyard are AWESOME! Red Moose is kind of a bummer, though. Sad.) I felt much more in my element walking around in a swimsuit and river shorts than when I was wearing a wet suit and neoprene socks with my chaco's last week. Too much neoprene drags you down, I've decided.
So, the point is this whole long blog is to say I feel like I'm home again. Now it really feels like the place where I met and (I'm pretty sure) I fell in love with my incredible husband. I'm back. Jackson will always be one of my homes. And I'm definitely home again.