On the first day of our adventure we drove all the way to Michigan. It was a very long drive, over 500 miles. By the time we got there, it was dark and Jack had already gone to bed. Mark stayed up and waited for us, but you could tell that he was pretty tired too.
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My dad and I sat up around the fire for awhile, trying to figure out if we should do the challenge tomorrow. There was rain on the way and it was supposed to turn cold.
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Bill, John, Steve, Bob and Janet all came over to say hello. They are all part of the Watertribe. They all new my dad and made me feel very welcome. After they left, we made the decision not to do the Kruger Challenge 100. Mark told us that Bill had tipped over today checking out the river. That there was lots of trees down and that the water was very cold. That was OK cause we knew it was going to rain too. So we made a plan to watch the start and go down river to find a place to paddle when the sun was up.
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We set up our tent and went to bed.
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We got up real early and helped Mark and Jack get ready for the challenge. We took extra clothes, tents and other stuff they did not want to carry with them. Our Jeep was stuffed!
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Jack yelled to everyone 5 minutes! Then at 6:00 am a lot of paddlers took off, but others were still getting ready.
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Then there was a crazy lady at the campground that kept hitting her dog cause he wouldn't listen. So I told my dad we should leave. I didn't want to see her hit the dog anymore.
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So we packed up our stuff and went out for breakfast at the Breakfast Burger Express. They had really good food there. Then we drove down to the river to watch some of the racers come by. We were there for 5 hours in the pouring rain. We didn't see one racer! We played a lot of hangman word games and listened to music.
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More rain and high winds, so we went down to a town called Cadillac. I tried to get my dad to take me to a movie, but they were all rated R, so of course my dad wouldn't let me watch. We had lunch and went up to Mesick to get set up for the finish.
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When we got to the boat landing in
Mesick we were almost attacked my 3 ducks. They were huge! We figured out that they thought we had bread for them. I went into the cooler and got out some bagel. They loved it and followed us around and even went out on the water when we went paddling.
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We went paddling for a couple of hours. The Manistee river is really nice. We saw a very old train bridge and a huge fish jump right out of the water in front of us.
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After paddling we went out for dinner at the Mushroom Bar and Grille. We hung out there for awhile as we had a long wait before racers would be coming in.
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We waited awhile and finally went to bed. Jack called my dad on the cell phone to say they were a mile out. It was 3:00 am in the morning so we got up to see Mark and Jack finish the 100 miler. I was amazed that they made it back alive!
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We pulled the Kruger Cruiser up to the car. Jack slipped and fell down. Then he got to his car and my dad said his tire was low, but it was really flat. Jack didn't get mad. He said he would deal with it in the morning and went to the hotel. Mark slept in his van, cause he didn't want to leave the boat and gear down by the finish.
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We decided to say our good byes and head back to Wisconsin. My dad said he was up could drive and I could sleep in the car.
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It seemed a lot faster going home, cause I slept most of the way and worked on my blog. We drove through downtown Chicago to look at the skyline. We lucked out. There was hardly any traffic cause it was Sunday.
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On the way back home, we made the decision on the
Watertribe. We would definitely do the Ultra Marathon and go as far as we could on the Everglades Challenge. So I guess we are really doing the Everglades Challenge. We are going to take it one mile at a time and see how we feel.
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I already have people pledging money and I don't even have my pledge sheets ready.
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The End - Boo
