Kayaking and camping trip...

Well, for my birthday, I thought I would change it up a little bit this year and plan an overnight kayaking trip. Well, it was quite the experience! It all started when we found out that those that said they were bringing matches didn't. We found this out after we kayaked down the river and set up camp. Chris and Jessica (the people I went with) decided to hike back up stream to the car. Well, easier said than done! I was pretty sure the river diverged and I figured there was no way we would make it back fast. Well we proceeded to pave our way through the woods where there were no paths in sight. You guessed it, cobwebs, burrs, limbs in the face, and lots of prickles. We finally got to a clearing where we hiked through the corn, and then other bushes. We then found the mud and went through that. I finally saw a glimpse of life-there were lights in the distance. I told Jessica and Chris that I was going to knock on someone's door to ask them for matches and forget about getting back to our cars because it just wasn't happening. I finally found a house but it looked shady so I waited for the others to catch up and come with me. No answer. We then went to another house. Keep in mind we looked horrible, muddy, burrs all over us, we looked like we were wearing the woods. Well, I nice man gave us 2 boxes of matches! We hiked back through the brush. Our trip took a total of 3 hours! Believe me I was looking forward to chill by the fire! We go back to the beautiful beach was set up on and we found that the river rose and our kayaks were almost taken down stream!! We salvaged the kayaks but lost a paddle! We moved our camp back and started our much anticipated fire. Had some good old fun with hot dogs and s'mores. We were tired so we went to sleep. Well, about 3 am I awoke to a bubble sound. We all immediately jumped up and zipped open the tents as fast as we could to discover we were in about 3 inches of water, which started to surround the tent!!! Yikes! We had to move everything over away from the water. We all tried to go back to sleep, but about 30 mins later I figured I would just check outside. Well, to my surprise, the water was coming our way again!!! The beach was flooding! Chris decided to just sleep in a camping chair, start a fire, and watch the river. Jessica slept in the kayak and I had the tent to myself! Well, I finally felt safe enough to drift off to sleep, but I awoke to Chris saying, "Heidi, uh you better wake up, the water is almost to the tent". I got up and moved the tent yet again... Well we ended up being on a 20 foot island! It was a good laugh. I stayed dry though! We got down the river, however Jess ended up forgetting her keys to her truck so we were stranded until a friend of Chris's picked us up to go get Jess's keys....Oh well, if it ended up any different from the way things were going, I would think it strange! It was an unforgettable #26 birthday bash!