Not Your Average Day

This post might be a death wish, but somebody needs to know whats going on here…Today started like any other day on the river. We started floating just after dawn and made breakfast as the sun rose, thinking today was going to be a great day. Well…it was, until we took a wrong turn somewhere and found ourselves in a completely unmapped portion of the river. Weird! Why isn’t this area on the map? We weren’t too alarmed since there was still noticeable current..meaning we we’re still moving in the right direction. As we tried to get our bearings straight, I noticed some signs on the shore and investigated to see if they could provide some help as to where we were..

OK something is definitely wrong here. “DANGER: Unexploded ordinance” and something else that implied going ashore would mean certain death, if not worse. We took another look around and noticed we had somehow been closed off to the river we had just came from! Before the panic could set in, we heard a motorboat getting closer until we saw it turn the bend and head straight for us. An all black speedboat with 4 men onboard sped towards us in a very intimidating way and pulled up just feet away from us. All I can remember thinking was how strange it was to see 4 mysterious men in all black suits and sunglasses out here in the middle of nowhere..then everything went black.

Who knows how long we were out for, but we were still on the boat headed somewhere..were we still in Illinois? Were we still in the United States?? Where was Skully!! Last I could remember he was sound asleep in the middle of his mid-breakfast nap when they took us. At this point I knew that I HAD to get free. A quick glance around and I noticed we were bound head to toe in steel chains, and were probably thrown in the hull of the boat. “This could be it”, I thought. Tanner was awake now,”We’re going to die”.

Now, I’m not sure how to describe it..but ask anyone in a life or death situation about how they found the courage or strength to survive. It comes from deep inside of you, they’ll say..and for me, it came from deep inside me, from a part just above the belly button..slightly below the sternum. As I let out a huge burp that shook the boat, I shattered the chains that bound me, ripped off the chains on Tanner and got ready for some mano-a-mano with some scary government guys. They were all on the ground, probably shook from my giant, boat-rocking burp. I saw our backpacks sitting on the chair. This is all a blur from here on out, but one of us grabbed the bags as the men were getting to their feet. 4 against 2 was weighed heavily against our favor, but the faint sound of a motor made me look up for a split second. As I was fending off blows with a walleye I had pulled from the river, I saw SKULLY!! He was on our raft (must have went undetected by the scary guys in black) and was driving towards us full-throttle, his cheeks flapping in the wind with a sort of mischievous smile on his face. It was now or never. Tanner and I leapt from the speed boat and landed with a “THUD” on our raft as Skully veered away. Bullets rained over our heads, but they did not pursue. What a good dog Skully is! We found our way back on course and have now docked in Davenport, IA to write this post, with which we might be sealing our fate. We will continue down river tomorrow, and have now decided to take the raft around the tip of Florida to seek amnesty in the Bahamas.. or will we?

PS. somehow in the midst of fighting off government guys, we were able to snap a picture of their secret compound government lair