The Nine-Mile Swamp My dad has plenty of stories of his time in college that friends and family always enjoy hearing. Whether they be his stories traveling abroad or his crazy tennis coach, everyone enjoys listening to his stories. My father has repeated so many times that they even feel like legends to me. His journey of the nine-mile swamp is one of the classics that everyone loves. In a time before cell phones and internet, my dad decided to go on a canoeing and camping trip with his college friends. Him and his friends had never been camping before so they had no idea what to expect. Luckily, another friend of his was an avid camper and told him what provisions he needed for the trip. Unluckily, this friend already had plans and…show more content… Good thing they had stayed the night because their luck had started to turn. Or that’s what they thought anyway. My dad and his friends packed up all their tents and provisions and started going downstream on the river. The current was a little stronger than usual due to all of the rainfall recently. Since no one had experience canoeing before, they thought none of it. They started canoeing for about an hour before the stream really started to pick up. A lucky break for their arms or the beginning of a terrible turn of events? A huge tree had fallen across the river the night before and blocked their path. The current was too strong for anyone to paddle against and the group accepted their fate. Everyone started to bail from their canoes as the tree neared. The canoes went crashing into the tree and everything in it fell into the water. All of the tents, food, water, and clothes had all fallen into the river never to be seen again. The crew started swimming after their canoes and brought them all to shore. Now everyone would call it quits. Since the current was too strong, they could not canoe back to their cars so they were forced to walk while carrying canoes over their head. Again, because of the rain, they were forced to walk in an inch of water the whole way back to the road. Could the trip really become any worse? Their stomachs growled and their throats yearned for water but they had to push on through the bog. Their whole bodies burned from head to toe, but they did not want to push their luck in case the weather got worse. The crew was exhausted after the exhilarating day of hard work. Camping would never be an activity they try to do together again. To this day, my Dad always has a plan for everything him and our family
