A tale of a brother and sister, British style.

Amen to this. It has saved me many a time lately.

A couple months ago my little brother and I went out on a sunshiney day to "float the river". Something a lot of people in our town do in the summer months. I had lived in Sandpoint for 28 years and had never done it, so we packed up our cooler , our tubes and had our mom drop us at the top after leaving our car at the bottom.......So we thought. We were told that the river was flowing fast this year so it would be about a 2 or 3 hour float.

We, for some reason started talking in a British accent and couldn't stop. We thought we were so funny and just kept up with it for hours. Of course neither of us took watches, so we had no idea how long it had been. We came to a beach and some people were joking with us that we had 5 hours to go and that they hoped we had our bug spray. We laughed it off, but then started wondering "Really, are they bloody serious?" We realized, as the sun started going down that we had made a mistake.

The next few hours were HELL. I am not joking or being dramatic. They were horrible. It got freezing cold outside, and we were ATTACKED by mosquitoes. FOR HOURS. If we got out of the water we were attacked. If we were in the water we were freezing. Plus: Isn't it just creepy to be in the deep water when it is dark and you don't know whats in there with you??? The river also, almost completely stopped flowing at this point, so we had to swim...and swim...and swim. Whenever we came to a beach we would get up on it and run to try to speed things up, but then we would get attacked. My brother kept whacking me with his hat. He said I had hundreds on my back and kept yelling at me to get back in the water. I was soooo cold!

At one point we tried to get out and run across this field to bypass a switchback and maybe find a rescue home???? But, no. We ran into barbed wire fence and my little bro did not have his shoes on! It was retched!! This was the point where our British accents were no longer funny and we dropped them like a bad habit. We finally got to a point where I decided I couldn't take it anymore. I had worked a few summers in college on this golf course that sat on the rivers edge. I decided I was going to keep getting out and walking up the bank until I found the course. And on my first try I saw it. The green of the 6th hole! (ok, I have no idea which hole it was, but i think it sounds cooler for the stories sake:) I told my brother we had to get out and run over there, but the woods to get there were so dense we couldn't see getting through it. All of the sudden I heard a hissing noise in the brush and jumped back in the river. I quickly learned that it was no snake.....I had popped my tube in the trees. We then had no choice but to make it through the woods. I was not about to get in that river tube-less. My poor brother cut up his feet and legs, lost his sunglasses and popped the cooler tube in those woods.

 While we were relieved to be on solid ground, we were not so happy that we were still getting attacked by mosquitoes. And the course was closed. We knew where the course was in regards to the car, so we ran through the course, got out to the highway and ran to our car. I have never been so happy to see my little Chevy Malibu. NEVER. At this point I think a few more British sentences came up, but we really felt like we had been through a life threatening ordeal. What if it had gotten really dark and we were still in there???? It had taken almost 6 hours to get there. Turns out the spot we started in was where we were supposed to get out!! We totally took the wrong part of the river! I was reminded of this for days as I itched my mosquito bites covering my body.

That, my friends, is my story:) and I dedicate it to my bro, BJ, who just turned 18! And to my sis Chels who also just turned 18 for being smart and choosing to not go with us:)

How cool are they????