I canoe, can you?

Last night I set an alarm for 8 AM and it went off which kinda surprised me for some reason, mainly because all of the times during the school year when I set an alarm it seemed to never go off. Evidently I didn't need to wake up that early because my friends didn't come for another 3 hours, but either way, I had three hours to myself. In that time I actually finished writing my story about the Hannukah scarf, and I mentally prepared myself for hanging out with three crazy girls for about 6 hours. When they came to pick me up there was a giant canoe attached to the roof of the minivan and they asked me to supply them with something bright to tie on the back of it, as per mandated by Florida state law. I gave them a crew shirt that said 'Join. Row. Win.' and was fluorescent yellow, it symbolized the journey we were about to take, and it wasn't mine so I didn't care what happened to it. When we eventually arrived at Wekiva around mid-day we got in a long line of cars trying to enter, but our spirit of adventure had to be put on hold because the park was closed due to overcrowding. According to the bald park ranger at the gate, we'd have to wait two hours to get in. None of us were too worried, we felt like we could handle each other for that long, but things got weird quick. When we parked in a parking lot about a tenth of a mile from the park, we were bored to the point where we actually started to clean the car, meanwhile my mom still can't get me to clean my room. Again we checked to see if we could finally enter the park, but they were again turning people away. Upset and anxious to get in, we trespassed into a school parking lot and sat there with the air conditioning on high until we got back in line for the third time, and were rejected like a wrinkly dollar in a vending machine. We made the difficult decision to abandon hope and got to Lake Osceola, but I decided to try a Hail Mary and actually call Wekiva to see when they'd be open. The lady told me that they were letting a few cars in but, unfortunately, it was a beautiful day and nobody wanted to leave. "That is unfortunate," I replied and hung up. When I told my friends that they were letting in some cars they all screamed and Lauren made a U-turn with the canoe somehow remaining on the car. After parking, a kind stranger helped us to take the canoe off the car and we put it on a roller, which was really just a pair of wheels that kept slipping out from under the canoe. It ended up with all of us carrying the canoe down to the river, which actually means that I carried one end, and the three girls carried the other end together. When we finally got down to the river, it was discovered that the canoe could fit no more than three people, contrary to what we thought was a 1,000 pound weight limit. One of the employees of the park came over to us after we got done struggling to walk with the canoe and told us, "I've seen some slow customers, but you guys are up there." Then he informed us that we were using the roller wrong because it needed to be tied around the top of the canoe to prevent slipping, which in retrospect made a lot of sense. My friend Zoey and I rode in the canoe we brought, and Lauren and Ashley went in the rented canoe. Zoey and I pushed off and started quickly down the river before we turned around to see the duo of Ashley and Lauren crashing into their first tree. Every time Zoey and I slowed down for the other two, they would crash again due in part to Lauren's inability to steer and Ashley's need for speed; their bickering was golden, only snipets could be heard, like Ashley saying, "I can do this! I was a girl scout!". All of the summers I had spent taking sailing and canoeing at Rollins College had paid off today as the canoe I was in kept out of the way of trees and bushes. Gators dotted the shoreline and at one point we passed by a huge gathering of people getting drunk to a cover of 'Ain't No Sunshine' on the grass along the river, but the most interesting thing about the river was all the strange people we saw on it. One canoe had two adult men and about 6 small children, while another kayak had an old woman smoking a cigarette. One odd group was two canoes with three paddles between them, they held onto each other and tried (to no avail) to paddle together. The entire experience was exhausting and can be surmised in Lauren saying "next time we're going to the beach." On our way back upstream, Ashley tried to race us but quickly propelled their boat into a tree. I recommended that she start her own crew team who's motto is 'Join. Row. Crash into nature.' Lord knows how, but we managed to load the canoe back on to the car and make it safely back to Lauren's house where we ordered pizza that was delivered by Lauren's brother, Ben. Zoey gathered a dollar in change and gave it to Ben as a tip, and I was given $5 and told Ben, "here's the real tip" and shoved it down the from of his pants. "I've never been tipped so aggressively," he responded. Lauren drove me home after watching a couple episodes of Bob's Burgers and letting our pizza digest. Tired and weary, I arrived home and barely said two words to my parents before crashing onto my bed and confining myself to my cave for the night.