Campus2Coast 2016: Cube2Canoe

Editor's note: This story, from guest blogger Bri Drake, sat in draft form for a year. The final touches were undoubtedly forgotten after other adventures, but the editorial staff feels that it's too good a story to go untold, so here it is!

Meet Scott and Bri.  They've been cubicle neighbors for a year at their engineering jobs.  Normally they get coffee and fix Excel problems together.  After a joking exchange of "Should we? Could we?" and a logistics meeting with their weathered friends Mark and Lauren they decided to commit.  Well Scott was chomping at the bit after "doing the math" and Bri was questioning this decision.

They prepped in true engineer fashion, they mapped out the portages, poured over mileage charts, made a spreadsheet to track packing and food and then they got in a canoe together once for a half hour the week before the race.  That's enough practice, right?

**All times are listed as Time After Race Start, 7am Friday, April 22nd.

-19:00 Bri cut her finger on a kitchen knife which sent her on a little field trip to the doctor to make sure it was alright to just super glue that puppy shut.  This was then followed by a trip to CVS to buy anything and everything that might be necessary to dress, waterproof and protect the wound; including a tube of Krazy Glue.

-03:00  The alarms went off and things got real.  Bri distinctly remembers looking in the mirror and saying out loud "What the f*** are we doing?".  But no good adventure starts without first questioning the sanity of said adventure.

00:00 A stop to grab Bri's rain pants and some garbage bags put them a couple minutes behind schedule and Scott was still out waiting for the shuttle to return when the gun went off.

00:30 Team Cube2Canoe gets in the water at the back of the pack.

03:08 The first dam!  The team reaches the Lansing Dam 10.2 miles downstream and has their first portage.  They ungracefully carry their boat (really carry is an generous description, it was ugly) around the dam and get back on the water.

18:30  The team had past the last dam before Grand Rapids and was paddling in the calm darkness.  Being novice distance paddlers, the stamina for fighting off nighttime delusions was pretty low in the front of the boat.  After "seeing" a curly mullet Michael Jackson and then finally "seeing" the railroad bridge that marked 70 miles, they decided to pull over and camp.  They picked the less steep left bank of the river.  Bri got out of the boat, pulled a bag up and then Scott said "Bri, this is a swamp.  Do you want to check out the other bank?"  To which she replied "No." and they set up camp on the the most solid area of the mud patch.  They set up the tent, brushed their teeth and set the alarm for 4 hours later.

23:00 The alarm went off and they hit snooze for another 45 minutes.

24:45 Back on the water and headed for Grand Rapids!  Turns out they really did see the railroad bridge and they quickly passed under it.

The finger injury proved pretty hardy.  It broke open a few times but nothing a few doses of Krazy Glue couldn't fix.

25:14    The first team finishes?!

46:00 - We followed the map to a location that we though was the end, but seeing no sign of people, we continued paddling toward the lake.  We made it to Lake Michigan.  Like the lake itself.  Bri climbed out onto the break structure and decided that there was no one there.  Feeling slightly unsafe and maybe a little frustrated, we paddled back upstream toward where we had come from.  After landing the boat, we got a hold of our well rested friends Mark and Lauren who gave us directions to the actual finish (that was not marked on the map).

48:30 - We made it to the actual finish!  They gave us beer.  We went out for breakfast.  It felt funny.  

Skills to learn to advance to Level 2 Distance Canoe Status:

• Don't put your snack bags in the bilge water.

• Your feet will get cold - pack more socks and warmer boots!