Getting to the river after what felt like an hour long bus ride, I find out, much to my dismay, that I had gotten Ms. Marchetti as a supervising teacher. I thought to myself, “Oh great, I got the teacher that has the least experience in the wild.” I quickly went down to the river, still disappointed.  I walked ahead of everyone else wondering if she would even let me jump from rock to rock, or rock hopping as it’s known to the locals.

Still not paying too much attention to Ms. Marchetti, I jumped in the water. It was very, very frigid to say the least. When people asked me about it, being the natural tough guy I am, I said, “It’s not even that cold, you should hop in!” but I knew that going to scout camp and being taught how to keep your body temperature in cold water was the only reason I wasn’t shivering to death. I started swimming around in the rapids, being careful where I was. They can be very dangerous if you don’t know what you’re doing. I soon had to hop out, because my friends had gone looking for another group to join up with.

After I hopped out, I could tell Ms. Marchetti was really excited to be at the river and wanted to know aboutthe types of birds and plants that were surrounding us. She  started out with pretty standard questions like,“What type of tree is that?” or  “What type of flower petal is this?”  but then she started testing me on my knowledge with tougher questions like, “What type of bird is that across the river?” I knew it was a european starling due to wherre it was located on the river and how the flock was flying. One was obviously able to tell she was genuinely interested in the river. She then started to make small talk. That was when I saw something I had never seen in her. She actually cared about me as a person and not just as a student.

She then started pointing things out to me that I would have never noticed before -- usually at the river there is a very strong learning curve, and after an hour she probably knew more about the river than somebody who had grown up there.

Finally I started up the path to find my friends. She pointed out to me the remains of a gar ,which at the time, I didn’t pay much attention to.

I jumped in the water one last time. I realized all my friends were up river. The only thing standing in between me and them was a rapid. I thought to myself, “I bet I could swim up that -- I was on the swim team.” Turns out I couldn’t. I got about halfway up after swimming to the very limit of my ability. You know when you think, This is definitely as hard as I should go but let me try a little bit harder just to try to push the envelope”? I got half way up and then had to stand and wade the rest of the way, which wasn’t easy cause I was dead tired from the swim. Anyway I just got on top of the rock they were all standing on and I felt victorious and then I slipped. Which was pretty funny.

When I’m an old man I think I will look back on that day and remember my friends cheering me on whilst I swam up the rapids. While I was a hopping around on the rocks. I will remember the joy and the restless energy of young adulthood.