Stilly River Rescue...well, sort of.

When your 51 and your kids are grown, there isn't a whole lot on the adventure scale that peaks your interest. In most cases you've been there and done that, so when your wife comes home at 8:15 and it's rapidly approaching darkness and asks " have you heard from Jonny?" your heart skips a beat when you realize you haven't heard from your son in several hours and haven't even thought about it (I know, shame on me!).

Flashback a few hours:

Jonny gets home from work and says "hey Dad, remember I'm going river rafting"....uh, oh ya, who's going again?... "Whitney (girlfriend), Caleb (her brother) and a few other friends from youth group".  I figure, cute girl, hot summer day, river, sounds fun, what could possibly go wrong...right? "have fun, make sure you're off the river by dark"

Back to the present:

"You need to call Jon!!"..... "I'm sure he's fine, there are 5 of them, what could possibly go wrong....OK, I'll call just to make sure" (not worried, but needing to keep mom happy!))

"Hey Jon, where are you guys at"..."we're still on the river"..."why?"..."It's a lot lower and slower than the last time and there's rocks everywhere...BIG ONES"..."how much further do you need to go?"... "Two miles!"

"You need to get off the river and find the road!"... "we are looking for a clearing now"..."can you send me your GPS coordinates?"..."I'll try"

A few minutes later I get this great little map on my phone (turns out cell phones are useful for other than texting...who would have known) that marks the spot where they're at on the river and I think I know area. I'm like "there's access to the road they'll be fine, we'll just wait for a call when they get back to the car". (still not too worried)

Well Mom is having none of it..."I'm going to go look for them"... I say "they're gonna be fine, there's five of them".

That went over like a lead balloon!

"Ok, fine I'll go without you...", aaand we all know what happens next....

As we jump into the Rover headed for Granite Falls, it's nearly dark.

25 minutes later we arrive at the their GPS coordinates, it's pitch black and the river is a lot further from the road than we thought. We think maybe they're on the roadway at this point (it's been 45 minutes since our last contact with Jon and he's not answering his phone now) and continue to drive towards Jordon Bridge (their final destination) where we find Jonny's car, but no kids.

Since we didn't see them, we figure they are still on the river and decide to start backtracking along the river bank.....on foot...in the dark (Bad idea, really Bad idea!)

So we cross the foot bridge and head down to the river. No more than a few minutes into our search along the banks of the Stilly and Dixie stumbles and falls on the sea of river rocks, badly stubbing her toe, (which usually happens when you wear flip flops in the dark) and I twist my ankle turning to see what happened to her. Even with a powerful flashlight we figure it's no use as the riverbank is treacherous and the darkness absorbs all the light...it was like a black hole! At this point Mom is seriously thinking of calling 911 and I am thinking how much that will cost (still not too worried, but a little).

Just then we get a text from Jon...

"We're on the road and walking back to the car!"

We pick up our pride, hobble back to the Rover, and we're off back the same country-road we came.  A mile and a half later we see the kids (looking like Lewis and Clark at the end of their expedition), wet, barefoot and walking on the side of this lonely byway in total complete darkness (the area we are in is very rural and there are no lights or shoulder to walk on anywhere!!), not a safe place to be.

Suffice it to say, 4 teenagers and 1 very embarrassed adult (youth group leader who should have known better) are more than happy that Mom insisted we go on a search mission.

There's a reason they say, "mom know's best!"

She does and Dad's too!

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P.S. Turns out that soon after they got off the phone with us they lost cell phone coverage. Several minutes later they see the warm glow of a backyard lamp. Heading towards it's radiance they surprise a woman enjoying the splendor of this fine evening in her yard along the river. After explaining themselves she graciously grants them access through her sprawling estate up the dirt lane and out to the main thoroughfare. After a considerable amount of time they reach the pavement, text us and we arrived in short order.

Remember, adventure is just a footstep away, just don't forget you cell phone!