A Cinderella Tale:Dancing in the Creek at Quehanna

Otherwise known as The Great Flip-Flop Misadventure!

My husband and I have been trying to line up two nice days in a row for a backpacking trip. But it's been tough. It's springtime, and it often rains or snows. Sometimes a little, other times a lot. You might get a nice day here or there, but not TWO of them, with a clear night thrown in, in between.

We'd been talking about a Quehanna backpack, as we had not been there since last fall. But then we saw the forecast, which showed a good possibility of rain either overnight or first thing in the morning. We didn't think we'd have enough time to get in and get out of the back-country without getting wet.

So we decided to make it just one big day hike in Quehanna, starting early and ending late, and tucking a huge adventure under our belts in the middle. And oh my goodness, did we ever! My husband insisted that we would hang out at the "beach" of our campsite, and by that he means the little creek, a tributary of Mosquito Creek, which eventually runs into the mighty Susquehanna.

He was taking his huge daysack but I only had a medium-sized one, so when he suggested water shoes, I balked, as I thought they'd take up too much room in my daysack. I grabbed some wool socks for hiking, saw my blue bathing suit, grabbed it, and at the last minute, I grabbed a pair of flip-flops, thinking they would be much smaller and lighter than my regular water shoes, easier to pack, and easier to clean. (Yes, we soak our water shoes after we use them because if you don't, no matter how clean the water was that you were in, they stink to high heaven.)

We headed to Quehanna via Bellefonte, and a Burger King breakfast that was out of this world. Two croissant sandwiches and a huge container of hash browns (aka "knockout tots," a separate tale) later, we were on I-80 and heading for Snow Shoe. And from there to Karthaus, where I picked up a quart of chili at Benton's for the cooler, and later. I knew they would be closed by the time we came back through in the evening.

And then we were in Quehanna, and the car was parked and we were walking back in to the Valley of the Elk. It felt like too long, way too long, that we'd been gone. There are big ruts in the trail from somebody's huge tire tracks long ago, and they are full of amphibian eggs this time of year. But somebody drove through recently, and I discovered a bunch of eggs lying by the puddles, OUT of the water. No no no!

So like a girl on the beach, throwing starfish back INTO the water, there I was, with mud on my hands, grabbing up every gooey gob of amphibian eggs and tossing it back in. PLOP! And SPLASH!!! Well, it made a difference to THAT ONE, I thought to myself. (I found and rescued a bunch more on my way out, btw. NOT ONE AMPHIBIAN LEFT BEHIND!!!!)

There is standing water in the woods and the creeks were higher than usual. There is one crossing where we have to sort of leap across the creek, but it was intimidatingly high. I found a different place to cross upstream. And then we were past the place where the rattlesnake was, and across the big moor, and setting up shop at the tiny beach area along the creek below our campsite.

We set up our chairs, put on some Bon Jovi, and got ready to go into the creek. My husband went first, with his tough Teva sandals on. Up and down the creek he walked! And then it was my turn. I changed into my bathing suit and put my flip-flops on. They had cute red apples on that looked like bigger versions of my red, polished toes that looked like cherries. What I did not know at the time is that I was headed in the direction of regret.

The creek is lined with bushes and poison ivy, which is thicker in some spots than in others. So I tried to pick my way along the shore without stepping in too much of it. My husband beckoned me to come over where he was; he thought it was too muddy where I was going in. But a big patch of poison ivy was between us and I just did not relish the thought of it.

So I stepped into the water, left foot first (yes, I'm right-handed but left-footed), right into a huge pile of mud and sand. My left foot went down and down and down and - suddenly I was STUCK!!! I put my right foot in. Just fine and dandy. But I could not move the left foot, no way, no how. I was going to have to sacrifice the flip-flop! So I pulled my left foot out (my hokey-pokey brain, saying: you put your left foot in, you put your left foot out!), and the flip-flop was just GONE. I mean, it was GONE. You could not even see any remnant of it! There I stood in the creek, with one flip-flop on.

The current swirled around and took some of the mud away. As the water cleared, I saw a tiny spot of red, which I leaned over and PULLED. Out came my flip-flop! Hooray! I put it on and marched up and down the creek, laughing, singing and dancing to a Bon Jovi song. (It's my life! It's now or never!) My husband shot some photos from on shore, including the one above.

He handed me my camera and I took some pictures from the middle of the creek, trying to convey to the world what a sense of joy there was in this day. A few minutes later, I handed him my camera back, and got ready to hop OUT of the water. But, as it turns out, getting OUT of the water was just as tricky as getting IN. There was a hefty bank, a big rock nearby, and swirling water around my feet.

So I hopped up onto the big rock, which was still underwater, and prepared to fling myself onto shore. And of course, I had not anticipated the dynamics of the current, which GRABBED BOTH my flip-flops, and ripped them off my feet! I landed, barefoot, squarely in a big patch of poison ivy, and watched my flip-flops floating away. One of them sat swirling in an eddy by my foot. The other one went sailing down the creek! I could have cried!

"THEY'RE BOTH GONE," I hollered. "Don't worry," my husband said, as he came to my side; "I will get them for you!" And then my own sweet Prince Charming went back into the water, very quickly, and nabbed first the one shoe, and then the other, and handed them back to me. (Photo of Prince Charming's rescue of Cinderella's flip-flops in the extras.)

So I put my flip-flops on, gratefully, and as I was walking back to my chair, I noticed my right foot was bleeding. The flip-flop got ripped off my foot, and during that process, it ripped a bit of my flesh. You may see a photo I am calling Blood on Blood, which shows how well my red blood matched the red of my toe nail polish, in the extras!

I got my first aid kit out of my daysack (glad I had thought to leave it there, how fortunate) and it turned out I had everything I could possibly need. Alcohol prep pads, triple antibiotics, band-aids. All in neat little packets, which in the end, my husband invited me to SAVE FOR LATER, for a REAL emergency. "If you're laughing, it can't be an emergency," he said. So I wiped it down with anti-bacterial soap and put a band-aid on it. Good as new!

We eventually moseyed up the hill to our rock, and then our campsite, where I did some tidying up for a while. Lots of sticks have fallen and so I played pick-up sticks a while. I told my husband that it seemed like we should be staying. But where were our tents? "Look at it this way," he said, "Walking in and out the same day gives us a SEVEN-MILE day, not just a three-and-a-half-mile day." "Who doesn't love a seven-mile day?" I asked, cheekily.

And so that is the tale of how Quehanna drew first blood, on my very first trip back in a whole bunch of too many months. But I made it through it, with the help of my own personal Prince Charming, rescuer of errant flip-flops for my double-Cinderella-in-the-water act. (A funny aside: my dad likes to call us, his girls, Cinderella. Only he says it like this: Cinder-EEEEE-la.) Back at the car, I assembled crackers topped with cheese and pepperoni, which we devoured greedily. It was a small sustenance but it got us home.

Our day by the numbers went something like this: we left the house at 9:30 and got back at 7:30, we spent six hours in the backwoods, we walked seven miles, and our tick total was eight when we left Quehanna.

Yes, my husband got eight ticks (and I got none - he is lead hiker, and lead hiker gets ALL the ticks), despite us both spraying ourselves liberally with bug spray before we left the car. Oh, and then he found and removed tick #9 on his belly, trying to dig in, just as we hopped into the shower as soon as we got home. So we are at six hours in the back-country, seven miles for our hike, and NINE ticks for the day.

So here are some lessons for this day:
*When it's time to have fun, GO AND HAVE IT! Even if all you get is one nice day. Take that day and squeeze every ounce of fun you can out of it! Is there someone you want to spend your day with? DO IT! Yes, do it NOW!
*Keep an eye out for ticks. They are out there, they are germy and diseased, and they are HUNGRY.
*If you have real gear, USE IT. Don't take along a crappy substitute (said the girl who almost lost her flip-flops in the creek). Me, I'm taking my REAL water shoes next time!

It is my custom to include a soundtrack tune, and the soundtrack for much of our actual adventure was Bon Jovi's Greatest Hits - the Ultimate Collection. Wow, what a great song set! I've got three pictures, so I'm going with three songs.
First, this is what I was actually dancing to while my husband took the photo above: Bon Jovi, It's My Life.
Here's my second-favorite dancing song from that CD: Bon Jovi, We Weren't Born to Follow.
And here's a little something else I like for dancing in the street stream: Mick Jagger and David Bowie, with Dancing in the Street.

It's my life
It's now or never
But I ain't gonna live forever
I just want to live while I'm alive
(It's my life!)