October 14, 2011::
Alice and I and our friend Dianna were the final checkers during the last eight hours at the last checkpoint 27 miles from the 2011 MR340 finish line. We obviously missed (by almost two days) seeing the first place paddlers pass this checkpoint, however we saw the last. But believe me, these too were certainly winners. Never in real life have I seen such a great example of the biblical truth that "...the last shall be first". The final two boats were two canoes with solo paddlers. Neither one had started out solo, but fairly early in the race the partners of each had given up and called it quits. But these two young men were not quitters. They completed the race as solo paddling their canoes meant to be paddled by two. A safety boat followed behind the final paddlers all the way from KC and that means that they were behind these two much of the later part of the race. Two young ladies "manned" that safety boat and they told us that they had come to admire these two young men as the gutsiest in the race. They also observed that the young guys had become the closest of friends during their joint forced solo journeys.
They left our check-point simultaneously with another young man who was solo in a kayak. He had been at the checkpoint for almost an hour and had come in so exhausted that it was questionable whether or not he would continue. But all three left smiling and laughing as they waved to us from the pulling current and yelled back, "We've got the hottest escorts on the river!”
It was truly a wonderful experience for us.
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