I see a black bear cub on the bank to the left...I'm officially scared

This is the story of one of the worst days of my life. It all started at JMU in June of 07. The ADHD Ginny and my boyfriend's club baseball team decide its a good idea to go tubing down the Shenandoah river.

He says theres a place where we can drop in and a place for a car to park to take us back to the other cars at the start point. "Its only like 9 miles long" he says... Thinking thats not too long and that we've got a few hours of daylight we listen to this kid.

We buy tubes and even a raft for the beer and ice to go in. Things are good. We get to the drop in point and start floating down the river. My boyfriend already had a tube, so he blows that up. This tube looks like its meant for a 10 year old-- not a 200lb 24 year old. He gets on it... the thing is 3/4 submerged. We all start floating down theres about 10 of us and plenty of beer... Life is Good.

10 minutes into this trip Todd flips out of his mini tube and can't get back on it. 5 mins later a snake swims right into him. All 10 people freak out. 2 fall into the water trying not to touch the water. Beer is being consumed faster now.

About 2 hours later the group has been split up into 3 subgroups. The first group realized that 9 miles is a long ass way to go with 5 hours of daylight and begin paddling. The second group, which I'm in, realizes this as well but later on and begin paddling trying to catch the first group. The third group doesnt give a shit because they've got the beer raft and its sunny out.

2 hours later, I smoked the people I'm with and am paddling by myself with no one in sight down a river that is hardly flowing and seems to be forking a hell of a lot. I see a black bear cub on the bank to the left...I don't see a mama bear. I'm officially scared.

30 minutes after the black bear sighting and me straight paddling for life, I see this guy on the bank fishing. I try asking him where I am and if theres been anyone floating down before me. Dude looks psycho and doesn't answer me. Noting this and the Exorcist looking house behind him I paddle faster.

1 hour later and my shoulders are screaming for relief; I catch up to the first group. Theres still 2 guys in front of them that paddled faster, but I'm just happy to see them. We talk about the shit we saw and how we are running out of daylight in an area that seems to have some ass backward people. Morale is low overall.

5 minutes after paddling with these guys we see the 2 guys that paddled faster on the banks waiving their arms telling us to get out. We're confused. Then we see a sign, STRONG RAPIDS AHEAD, NO BOATS, ROCKY SHALLOWS. We promptly get out of the water.

Seeing these guys makes me a little less nervous. They have a cell phone that they put in a ziploc along with their wallet. We have no idea where we are though. Theres nothing but a sort of gravel road that leads into the woods. Its starting to get dark and a little chilly. We've been in the water for about 5 hours. We dont know where the other 5 guys are. Some guys begin looking like they're going to cry. I say "get a grip". They didnt appreciate it.

About 20 minutes later we're calling out for the missing guys and calling people we know to try to get help. I tell guy in charge of cell phone that 911 can track where the signal is coming from. He doesnt believe me and phone is dying. He has his sneakers on and we tell him to take the gravel road and see where it takes him so he can look for help. We find the guys on the other bank walking along the railroad tracks.

Our sneaker bearing friend comes back saying he got out and got the car. He says he ran to a road and went looking for a house to ask to use the phone. Every house was way too sketchy, like Texas chainsaw sketchy. He passes the creepy fisherman and decides not to ask him anything because he looks like a serial killer.

He gets to a main road and actually flags down a passing cop. He takes him to his car at the end of the tubing route. He brought his car out, we just need to hike out to it. With no shoes we hike out trying to avoid the prickly burrs and climbing an old dam that has a 40 ft drop on one side.

We make it out, but we have to cram 10 people and 5 tubes into a mountaineer. After all this we decided since it was a Tuesday that we were going to the bar for karaoke night to sing "Redneck Yacht Club."