Knowing we needed to meet my family in the afternoon, we were up and on the river before we’d even finished our first round of burritos for the day.
Foul Rift was the next major set of rapids, and we knew it was both well outside our wheelhouse AND a nightmare to portage. We pulled out in Belvidere, New Jersey and fought our way through a flock of pissed off geese to scout out a portage route through town. Several miles of railroad tracks and lawn-hopping later, we got a good look at the rapids (the general sentiment was “oh HELL no”) and then hiked back to the boat along the road.
Of COURSE the day we have to portage multiple miles through traffic was the one that’s sunny and swelteringly hot. Weirdly, the locals of Belvidere barely seemed to notice two sweaty river rats hauling an 18’6” canoe loaded with gear jogging down the side of their main drag; this only served to reinforce our working theory that we were dead, this was purgatory, and nobody could see us. We rationalized the Megaboaters by deciding they were lost souls who had died on a tragic group trip that now haunted quiet stretches of the river.
Sunburned, sweat-soaked, and tired, we put back to sea safely below the raging waters of Foul Rift. We had to put in some actual paddling effort, but we cruised through the last twenty miles to Riegelsville in perfect time to meet my Aunt Susan and Uncle Dick for the night. Their friends Bart and Catherine were kind enough to let us leave the canoe at their boat launch, and we had our first REAL night in the front country of the trip. I was pumped to visit family whom I hadn’t seen in a while, and they did not disappoint: hot showers, laundry, whiskey shots, cold beers, homemade lasagna and apple crisp, and a very mellow evening parked on the couch watching Antiques Road Show.
Sometimes getting stuffed to the gills on baked goods and passing out on a sleeper sofa after a hot shower is about as good as life can get.