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So we headed out just before noon when hurricane conditions moved into Fayetteville, plodding our way slowly down the freeway in the sideways rain. Headed for Fern to see if the same rain hit there. Negatory. Consulted the iPhone and phoned a friend. Hem-hawed around a lot. Decided to head east and catch up with the monster front that came through Fayetteville earlier. Low probability of success, but we're not Team Stupid for nothing. Hit Wendy's in Clarksville with rain pouring into the car window as we tried to secure the fries and frosty. Headed north and popped out at EFLB, seeing flood-signs all along the way. Texas Matt wanted to boat every ditch with muddy water in it, but cooler heads prevailed and we stayed the course. Ditched the non-4-wheeler at the pavement and headed down in Jermdog's truck fully stocked with creek boats. Decided to just drop on down into Stepp Cr. to see what's there. Chocolate milk was flowing in Stepp, but a bit on the thin side, so we wrassled with a bunch of rocks on the way down. Thighmaster closed the door on me and I demonstrated how to do reverse-creek-boat-loops in between the undercuts and spankin' hole for several long seconds. Luckily Spanke was able to grab my bow and thus avoided me having to open up a full can of whoop a**(tm) on the poor rapid. Pac-Man tried to knock the dog crap out of us on the boof move side. Fun enders in the soup at the end of the run. Then we waited while Spanke crawled a couple miles up the hill to get the truck... (Me: man, that sure took a long time. Did you even run at all? Spanke: I ran where it was flat. Me: there are no flat spots, it's all uphill!) So, with only about 90 minutes until sunset, we headed up to the blueberry farm to walk up and tackle the EFLB. Woke up the landowner and paid him for a shuttle. When Jermdog got back, I started looking for my helmet. No helmet. So the group starts up without me and I cry a little. Landowner comes down and asks what's wrong. When I explain, he fixes me up with his bicycle helmet and sends me on my way (I owe the guy a case of beer sometime soon). I sprint-drag my kayak up the rocky old roadbed to try to catch the group before they put on. Caught them just before the put-in, with about 30 minutes till dark. No time to rest, so I head down into Obliterator still breathing hard with the bike helmet on as tight as it will get. Ugly run through Obliterator, but I'm still upright and airtight. Manage to sort of get my stuff together as we fly down the creek, not pausing for anything. Make it to the third gorge at about sunset. Blaze down the rapids with no major issues - pretty fun running everything in fast-forward actually. We make the bridge with the light fading fast and EFLB at a very good level.

Sometimes it pays to be Stupid...

- Fish

I hope one day to have stories like Fish's. I want more.

Sounded like alot of fun. wish i could have gone.

Fish,

Maybe I should point out the obvious.............you have serious problems with helmets.

Ahemmmmm. Speaking of which, I'll be on the Big Piney with a group of novice paddlers this weekend. Lemme know how to catch up with you to retrieve my HELMET.
TJ

TEam Stupid, they just keep on keeping on! TJ, we're in R'Ville tonite staying out of the rain.

Ninja skills.

-Texas Matt

1. I ran some
2. You seemed pretty stuck upside down under with your bow in the below the under cut rock when I pulled you out.

Footage to be put up soon

Mad ninja

A Savage Spanke wrote: 2. You seemed pretty stuck upside down under with your bow in the below the under cut rock when I pulled you out.

Sorry about getting that detail wrong. It's harder to see clearly with your head underwater. My bad.

- Fish

I got you clawin and getting sucked back into the hole on tape, all the sweet cartwheel moves to follow I missed because I had to put the camera down (for obvious reasons)

Fish wrote: Sorry about getting that detail wrong. It's harder to see clearly with your head underwater. My bad.

- Fish

Fish and I learned the secret to becoming a better paddler a long time ago (always write the trip report).