Well, it finally happened.
I'm sitting here drying my cell phone and camera with the hair dryer and wondering if I should even mention my recent swim in a tributary of the Arkansas River.
This morning, daybreak found me at the banks of Lagoon Creek, one of the favorite and lesser known fishing haunts I frequent in the winter.
The creek was running high and the steep banks were muddy and slick from all the recent rain.
It took some searching, but I found a place to drop the kayak into the water next to some hanging tree limbs. I planned to slide out on and lower myself down into the yak.
There's not a clue as to why I thought it was a good idea, but I scooted slowly and gingerly out on the limb and eventually hung my feet into the kayak. I was about to drop in and was already wondering how to get back out when the whole bank collapsed. I hung straddled vertically between a now teetering limb and a tottering yak for a moment before the yak flipped over.
Jeez, that water was cold and surprise, surprise, it was six feet deep. There was no way back up the bank, so I frantically thrashed and shoved my upside down kayak about twenty yards to a muddy slope and slogged out of the water into mud up to my knees. Ugh!
I gave myself a few minutes to get my breath back, then dumped the water out the kayak and slogged through another good twenty yards of the blackest, coldest goo imaginable before reaching dry ground.
What a muddy mess! I stripped to my underwear and jumped in the pickup, where I warmed my numb arms and legs for a good half hour with the heater and an old blanket carried for emergencies.
Both the camera and cell phone seem to be working now, at least for the short-term.
It could have been worse. My electronics were nothing compared to what could have been lost.