Labor Day weekend was anything but laborious. About a dozen water-loving friends and I spent the long weekend up in The Forks, running the Dead and Kennebec Rivers. We camped at the traditional camping area for boaters, Webb's Campground.

On Sunday seven of us--Lisa, Craig, Sandie, Josh, Andrew, Heidi, Carl and I--loaded up my raft and shot down the Dead River. The 5500 cfs (cubic feet per second) release provided 16 miles of near continuous excitement. Spencer Rips and Humpty Dumpty rapids in the upper river were fun, but Big Poplar Falls lower down was WILD! The wave train was huge and we hit it perfect and stayed with it right through Fry-O-Later Hole (a biggie!). Somewhere along the way we lost Craig overboard, but the fearless crew quickly pulled him back in. John, Dave and Melissa (brave souls for sure) ran the Dead in their kayaks and had an equally exciting day.

The group gathered that evening for post-river cocktails and eats down the road at the Marshall Hotel. There's a sign posted up in the rafters there that reads "Live Well. Laugh Often. Love Much." Seems the Marshall never fails to instill all those good feelings after a day "on the river." Takes me back to the rip-roaring good times of my river-guiding days of a few years back. Anyway, it was a boisterous scene of burgers, beers, jukebox music, several games of cut-throat billiards and mixing with all the other river rats. Then it was back to camp for some relaxing around a roaring fire.

Early on Monday Carl, Dave, Steph, Sara, Craig and I put the raft in at Harris Station for a run down the Kennebec River. The release was scheduled for 6000 cfs, but I don't think so. The wave trains were much bigger than that, in my opinion, so I'd say it was running about 8000. Big stuff! But oh so much fun. We got a touch fouled up coming into Big Mama and ended up running it backwards. Then we shot down the Alleyway into Whitewasher and over Big Kahuna. We rode an endless stream of BIG waves all the way to Cathedral Eddy, hooting and hollering down the gorge. Rafting as it's meant to be, boys and girls! On to Magic Falls... we hit the hole just a hair to the right but still got slammed hard. But not as hard the hit we took just below at Hell Hole (I normally try to skirt it, but today, ah well, what the hell). Craig got shot out of the front of the raft, while I got thrown hard to the floor. We fished our swimmer out in a flash and continued floating on...

Go Craig: 2 days + 2 dunks = 2 much fun! Makes going back to work on Tuesday look mighty dull I'm afraid.