“Bring Floaties!” said the hare. So a wide variety of dime-store plastic inflatables made their appearances, as the hashers pulled into the limited parking along Rt 3 just west of exit 6 (not 6a). The choices were obviously made with low cost being the primary goal. Most favored simple rings, and there was one rather unstable inflatable “jet-ski” brought by an optimistic Fuwangi. Just Colin and Just Pat brought small inflatable toy animals and water wings. Not a wise choice. I guess they’re hashers after all. WIPOS brought Mrs. WIPOS and a canoe. Don’t worry; Mrs. WIPOS is the smart one. Bondo brought a life vest. Ha, ha!

Promptly at 6:30 (they had heard that Basket was coming with Snotty, and had to be restrained from leaving early) they were off, floating downriver (north) on the Big River. The water was chilly, but tolerable (unless you were only made buoyant by water wings). (Or a life vest. Ha, ha!) “Trail” went under Rt 3 and then under the long and acoustically pleasing tunnels under Rt 95. But everyone was pretty well spread out, depending upon the choice of flotation, so there was no real singing. And Basket’s horn could be heard in the distance, so the paddling was furious.

Finally, a mark was seen on the east side of the river, along with the hare. Getting out of the water gear, they took to the woods. There was a long false trail continuing north along the river. Virtually everyone fell for it, although Amish and WHO had to hide in the brush on the way back to allow Snotty to savor the full experience of this WIPOS-like trail. True trail went south. A check bushwhacked them uphill to another path, but it was pretty obvious that it would not make sense to stray too far from the river. Apart from WHO and Amish, most continued on, avoiding the unnecessary loop on the hill. They came back to 95 and predictably, waded across the river to the fishing lot and the beer stop, where the canoeists were waiting.