The Blizzard of ’93 hit while Danny and I huddled in our sleeping bags in the new $120 tent with Bennett and Robert. Ted and Shawn were asleep in the smaller tent. Four-year-old Robert made the discovery.
Thirty minutes before it hit, I got up at 7 am to make a call on nature. The woods were soaked. It had rained all night. I hadn’t slept well, listening for the rain to turn to sleet or snow, and worrying that Danny wasn’t warm enough.
The day before had been been the longest day of my life, I decided. (The longest night was with Ted C. in Little River Canyon.) Packing for our camping trip to the Okefenokee, I had stayed up until 1 am, counting on being able to nap during the 5 hour trip south.
I got up at 5:15 am and showered, waking Danny at 5:30. The car was packed. Danny was already in several of his layers. He put on his shoes, went to the bathroom, and we climbed into the Fox and drove into the darkness for an adventure.
Our first stop was Waffle House where we were the first customers of the morning. We both had pecan waffles. We shared a side order of bacon. I even sprung for glasses of orange juice. (Gramalie would have objected, but we were free men beginning an adventure.)
Kathy had expressed her concern about me taking Danny to the Okefenokee with bad weather coming. I was more concerned that I might be taking Danny away from the only snow of the year. But I also knew, no matter how much it looked like it was going to be a wet trip, we couldn’t cancel camping.
Danny and I arrived with 2 minutes to spare at Ted and Nancy’s. 6:28 am. Ted packed everything up in the van. Bennett had been over the night before to help strap on the canoes, so most of his stuff was packed. We were due to pick up him and Robert at 7:00 am.
Between Ted’s house and Hardee’s, we talked about how much rain it looked like we were in for. Neither of us had seen the “scattered showers” symbol that Bennett reported on a conference call the day before. Both of us had seen pouring rain forecasted on the 11 o’clock news. After Ted picked up biscuits for himself and Shawn, we came up with plan C, one Bennett knew nothing about. (Plan B was Key West. Not very practical.) We would camp at the Hedges’ farm. There was a river for canoeing, a pond for fishing, woods for camping, a farm house for emergencies, and we would only be an hour or so away.
Bennett was not impressed. Of course Bennett wanted us to drink water, eat spam, and paddle with only a broken hoe. Bennett is a purist. Alice said we were wimps. She said this in a terry cloth bathrobe with no other destination than a cozy office. We, on the other hand, were dressed for the woods and were headed for unknown dangers.
So we packed up and headed for Braselton, forgetting the steaks in Bennett’s freezer. Bennett would randomly curse all weathermen throughout what turned out to be a much nicer day than forecasted.
We were able to find a nice spot to set up the two tents. Bennett hacked up some rotting logs with the broken hoe to fill in a couple of holes. The woods were filled with unseen holes caused by rotted tree stumps. We formed an over-tent with two tarps. The 3-man tent had a ground cloth. Our new $120 5-man tent did not have one. Fortunately the ground was thick with leaves and straw. This made things more comfortable, but also made the surrounding grounds more absorbent.
It was cold all day, but it only occasionally drizzled or sleeted. We set up camp, gathered fire wood, and the kids gathered rocks to put around the fire pit dug with the multi-purpose broken hoe and Ted’s army shovel.
Setting up camp and fixing lunch took us to almost noon. We decided to get the canoeing in while the weather held. The river was being dredged, so the sound of the giant boat-vacuum could be heard throughout the day. Since no one had paddled the river, and since we only had the van to drop off and pick up, we decided to go in two shifts rather than in both boats. This turned out to be a blessing.
After a hairy put-in where the canoe almost tipped and Bennett lost his paddle, I hurried the van back to camp. I was worried that Ted, Shawn, and Bennett might beat us back. Danny and Robert played in the sandy banks of the river for over an hour, climbing tree roots that hung like vines from the eroded banks, and throwing clods of sand into the river, reversing the dredging process. We were also entertained when the dredging pipe sprung a leak that sprayed a huge fountain of sand and water into the air, soaking a nearby pine from top to bottom. Too much time passed, and I began to worry, wondering if we had dropped them off on a branch that met the river down from the camp.
Just as I was ready to mark the take-out with a tarp, and go looking for the missing party, I saw the red canoe coming around the dredge. Seems that fallen trees in the last quarter of their trip had made the going impassable. Bennett and Ted had to carry the boat around obstacles a dozen times. Shawn moaned and groaned, compounding the misery. Bennett and Ted were wet and exhausted.
Danny, Robert, Bennett and I took the canoe a bit more down the river to complete the trip. Danny and Robert each got to paddle. We spotted some beaver tracks on the banks. Ted had seen either a beaver or an otter earlier. I don’t think otters live in Georgia.
Ted went up to get the van with Shawn where he found that the keys in my pocket were not in the ignition.
So we all had to walk back to camp. Ted took a detour with the boys to give them a bath at the farm house. Bennett and I traversed the fields, finding several golf balls, and tossing them on the brown greens. I found an owl feather and stuck it in my hat, much like the wild turkey feather Nicole had found on a previous cold, rainy camping trip.
The weather was getting colder, but no rain. In fact, at times, it seemed the clouds were going to break up. Bennett commented on how sunny it must be in the Okefenokee.
We broke out the fishing gear, re-spooling the reels, and setting the hooks. The tub of worms we had purchased in a bait shop that advertised “Worms, Crickets, Minnows and Lizards” wriggled in anticipation. Danny had picked up from the good old boy running the store that hooking the worms twice was important.
Down by the pond, the Dads set up their boys. After many lost worms, Danny got the first bite. He got a hard tug on his line and reeled in a wide-mouth bass. I was impressed, even though it was on the small side.
This was Danny’s first fish. Danny’s class had been studying fish at school the week before. One project involved inking up a fish and pressing it to paper, making fish prints. Danny told me he had touched the fish’s eye and stuck his finger in its mouth. And now he had a live fish on his line, and it had an amazing wide mouth at that. The hook was sunk well and took pliers to remove. Danny was very disappointed about the rule on throwing small fish back. I had failed to explain that rule earlier. He wanted to cook it.
In hind site, I should have kept that fish, cleaned it, and cooked it for Danny’s supper. But Ted insisted and none of the other boys had fish. So we snapped a picture, and let the wide-mouth bass return to be caught another day. Danny would report later that to be the highlight of his adventure.
Each boy caught at least one more little fish, all of which had to be returned. Danny insisted. Fair was fair.
The cold began to get unbearable, so we returned to camp to start a fire and get dinner going. That took us through to dark and bed time for the boys who enjoyed poking sticks in the fire and eating hamburgers cooked in the woods.
The drizzle came just about the time the boys were climbing into sleeping bags in the big tent. They did a good job of settling down. The long and adventurous day helped knock them out quickly.
The big boys were left to huddle around the warmth of Bennett’s bright Coleman lantern on small camping stools between the tents. The tarps provided good cover as the drizzle turned into rain and the cold wind picked up.
We managed to polish off a pint of bourbon between stories and jokes. We huddled together, knees touching, getting warmer with each sip. It would have looked strange to have sat this way in a living room at a dinner club party, but it was the only way to share the heat and the small dry space between the tents.
About 10:30 we transferred Shawn to the small tent with Ted, and Bennett and I climbed it with our boys between us.