# "The River Runs In A Circle"



## Bearfootfarm (Jul 13, 2006)

http://www.mlive.com/news/muskegon/...p_tur.html#incart_most-commented_news_article



> MUSKEGON COUNTY, MI â They left for what they thought would be an easy float down Muskegon River Tuesday afternoon â but ended up spending the night on the river bank, scared and yelling for help.
> 
> The trio of young women were rescued 20 hours later after a fisherman eventually heard their cries, said Muskegon Township Deputy Fire Chief Bob Grabinski.
> 
> ...


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## Evons hubby (Oct 3, 2005)

Bearfootfarm said:


> http://www.mlive.com/news/muskegon/...p_tur.html#incart_most-commented_news_article


We're these women blond by chance? Or Hillary supporters?


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## mnn2501 (Apr 2, 2008)

Yvonne's hubby said:


> We're these women blond by chance? Or Hillary supporters?


From the pictures in the article they were Hillary supporters


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## Bearfootfarm (Jul 13, 2006)

Yvonne's hubby said:


> We're these women blond by chance? Or Hillary supporters?


Not unless they own wigs


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## MO_cows (Aug 14, 2010)

Wonder if the person who told them that was just making a joke that they didn't get; or if they did it on purpose to screw with them? It was very mean if the latter. These girls apparently don't know the difference between a water park attraction and a real river. I bet there are quite a few people who are just as disconnected from the natural world. 

Taking advantage of people's ignorance is pretty much just another form of bullying. I might think to myself that someone is dumb as a box of rocks but I'm not going to exploit that fact, especially not if it could get them hurt.


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## arabian knight (Dec 19, 2005)

That is as bad as this lady who is SERIOUS, and wants this deer crossing sign MOVED, so the deer won't be hit by cars.~!

*Please Move The Deer Crossing Sign.*

[YOUTUBE] ?v=RFCrJleggrI[/YOUTUBE]


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## CurtisWilliams (Mar 14, 2005)

WOW. So much for Darwin's theory!


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## Murby (May 24, 2016)

My favorite part of the article:
*"Not knowing anything, they set off on their little adventure."*

Not knowing anything at all.. If you're that stupid, how do you survive puberty or get a drivers license?


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## Fennick (Apr 16, 2013)

I feel bad for those spinny girls :stars: but reading about their misadventure still made me laugh out loud. Hard. With tears running down my face. :hysterical:

LOL. I needed a good laugh. So I "liked" the post.


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## Michael W. Smith (Jun 2, 2002)

MO_cows said:


> Taking advantage of people's ignorance is pretty much just another form of bullying.


How do you consider the person took advantage of them?

Taken advantage means the person "got" something out of it. For example - the three women asked the person if they had change for a $20.00. The person takes their $20.00 bill and gives them 3 $5.00 bills.

I have never seen a river run in a circle. A person in their 20's should know that. 

The fact that the 3 of them together didn't know it - is just plain scary.

There is ignorance - of not knowing something - and then there is just plain stupid. You can't fix stupid.


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## MO_cows (Aug 14, 2010)

Michael W. Smith said:


> How do you consider the person took advantage of them?
> 
> Taken advantage means the person "got" something out of it. For example - the three women asked the person if they had change for a $20.00. The person takes their $20.00 bill and gives them 3 $5.00 bills.
> 
> ...


What the person got out of it was entertainment. The same low level of entertainment as sending the mentally challenged kid into the auto store to ask for the blinker fluid and then laughing at them. 

Maybe that person meant it as a joke, thought they really knew better. But if it was done on purpose, it was mean. 

I too found it funny on some level that a grownup person really truly didn't comprehend that a river can't run in a circle. Its the same part of us humans that made the "banana peel slip and fall" a classic I guess. But then again, consider there are more and more people who don't seem to have left the city for generations. The ones who want a photo of their kids with the bear at Yellowstone and so forth. I have referred to such people as citiots and don't have much personal regard for them. But - I wouldn't do anything to intentionally hurt them either.


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## Murby (May 24, 2016)

There is absolutely no excuse for the level of stupidity these girls exhibited. A 6th grader would have known better. 

Darwin was attempting to fix the problem for society but was interrupted by someone with a cell phone.


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## CurtisWilliams (Mar 14, 2005)

Please correct me if I am incorrect. Didn't Robert Jordan's Wheel series have a circular river? 'The wheel wills as the wheel will'.


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## vicker (Jul 11, 2003)

CurtisWilliams said:


> Please correct me if I am incorrect. Didn't Robert Jordan's Wheel series have a circular river? 'The wheel wills as the wheel will'.



I don't remember that being in the story. Perhaps? Dang, I hated those books.  I found the third installment in some trash and opened it.  then I had to get the first two, then read through all thirteen books of so and so tugging on her braids, wishing she had a good, stout pair of those two rivers shoes, while wearing a green dress with yellow embroidered roses on the sleeves, an olive blouse of fine such and such silk, stitched by sea witches, overseen by the daughter of the moon, while drinking mulled wine, in goblets of ebony, ornately carved in intricate detail, and nibbling ... Yeah.  I read the whole darn thing. Then Jordan had the gall to kick the damned bucket before he finished, I could of killed him!


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## vicker (Jul 11, 2003)

Come to think of it, there probably isn't much that wasn't in those books. Haha!


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## mreynolds (Jan 1, 2015)

vicker said:


> I don't remember that being in the story. Perhaps? Dang, I hated those books.  I found the third installment in some trash and opened it.  then I had to get the first two, then read through all thirteen books of so and so tugging on her braids, wishing she had a good, stout pair of those two rivers shoes, while wearing a green dress with yellow embroidered roses on the sleeves, an olive blouse of fine such and such silk, stitched by sea witches, overseen by the daughter of the moon, while drinking mulled wine, in goblets of ebony, ornately carved in intricate detail, and nibbling ... Yeah.  I read the whole darn thing. Then Jordan had the gall to kick the damned bucket before he finished, I could of killed him!


It didn't help that he took ten years or so off to write those civil war novels when he should have been taking care of business.


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## DryHeat (Nov 11, 2010)

Google oxbow images. There are rare extreme configurations where you could in fact take back out of a river very close to where you put in.... Of course, I'd've looked at Google Earth images all up and down any stream I was thinking about doing a raft trip or tube float on, but that's just me.


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## Bearfootfarm (Jul 13, 2006)

Oxbow's can get you back *if* you have a means of propulsion.
These girls were drifting in the current.


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## coolrunnin (Aug 28, 2010)

Bearfootfarm said:


> Oxbow's can get you back *if* you have a means of propulsion.
> These girls were drifting in the current.


Why would you need propulsion other than the land end?


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## Fennick (Apr 16, 2013)

No oxbows on the Muskegon River, it's not even a meandering river. I looked it up, it's a BIG river, very wide, swift and turbulent in places. Not the kind of river I'd recommend any novices go tubing on. Perhaps okay for people who are very experienced in tubing big rivers and well prepared with extra supplies.

I'm thinking maybe those girls lied about how they got into their predicament. I'm thinking they didn't know anything at all about the river, got themselves into a bad fix because of not doing research and made up a story about how they got into trouble by putting the onus on some other guy to try to save face for themselves. 

below is the Muskegon River.


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## Fennick (Apr 16, 2013)

coolrunnin said:


> Why would you need propulsion other than the land end?


Things drifting down river usually tend to drift towards the middle of the river because the current drags them to the middle. Rivers flow faster down the middle than they do on either side closest to river banks because the middle is deeper and has less impediments. If the river is wide and the current is swift enough you need some kind of propulsion to get yourself out of being trapped in the middle of the river to reach land. Paddling with hands or paddles won't accomplish that if you're drifting in a round non-streamlined inner tube or coracle, all it does is cause spinning and worse physical exhaustion.


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## Bearfootfarm (Jul 13, 2006)

> Originally Posted by coolrunnin View Post
> Why would you need propulsion other than the land end?


Because oxbows don't* flow *upstream
Most of the time there is little to no current at all


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## Nevada (Sep 9, 2004)

Strange story. Why were they hugging a tree, and how did they get all scratched up? Their entire journey was only 3 miles, so why didn't they simply walk back upstream to their car?

It's not like this happened in the wilderness. The entire incident happened right in the outskirts of Muskegon. If they wandered in most any direction the would have found a road, so they almost certainly would have run into someone who could give them a lift back to their car.


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## coolrunnin (Aug 28, 2010)

Bearfootfarm said:


> Because oxbows don't* flow *upstream
> Most of the time there is little to no current at all


Unless they have closed off they have river current. If they closed off they are a lake not a stream.


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## coolrunnin (Aug 28, 2010)

Fennick said:


> Things drifting down river usually tend to drift towards the middle of the river because the current drags them to the middle. Rivers flow faster down the middle than they do on either side closest to river banks because the middle is deeper and has less impediments. If the river is wide and the current is swift enough you need some kind of propulsion to get yourself out of being trapped in the middle of the river to reach land. Paddling with hands or paddles won't accomplish that if you're drifting in a round non-streamlined inner tube or coracle, all it does is cause spinning and worse physical exhaustion.


Any time you can move faster than the current you can steer.


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## Fennick (Apr 16, 2013)

coolrunnin said:


> Any time you can move faster than the current you can steer.


True. Which means you have to be using some kind of propulsion to move faster than the current.


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## coolrunnin (Aug 28, 2010)

Fennick said:


> True. Which means you have to be using some kind of propulsion to move faster than the current.


Maybe your arms and hands would work in a tube.


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## Fennick (Apr 16, 2013)

coolrunnin said:


> Maybe your arms and hands would work in a tube.


Hands work okay for both propulsion and steering if you're free-floating your tube in a slow current. Not so good in a fast current.


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## Bearfootfarm (Jul 13, 2006)

coolrunnin said:


> Unless they have closed off they have river current. If they closed off they are a lake not a stream.


Even if they do it's still only going to flow *downstream*
Water won't run uphill



> Quote:
> Originally Posted by coolrunnin View Post
> Any time you can move faster than the current you can steer.


Only if you have a source of propulsion.
Hands and feet aren't too efficient when sitting in a tube


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## coolrunnin (Aug 28, 2010)

Bearfootfarm said:


> Even if they do it's still only going to flow *downstream*
> Water won't run uphill
> 
> 
> ...


You saying this river doesn't flow?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxbow_lake#/media/File:Nowitna_river.jpg


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## coolrunnin (Aug 28, 2010)

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1f/Nowitna_river.jpg


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## Bearfootfarm (Jul 13, 2006)

coolrunnin said:


> *You saying this river doesn't flow?*
> 
> https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxbow_lake#/media/File:Nowitna_river.jpg


I never said any such thing.

An "Oxbow Lake" doesn't flow because the ends are sealed.
An "Oxbow" hasn't been sealed and if there is any flow it will be *downstream*, not in a circle. Most current will still be in the main river channel.
A "Loop" isn't an "oxbow" and has no relevance.

This is simple physics


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## coolrunnin (Aug 28, 2010)

Bearfootfarm said:


> I never said any such thing.
> 
> An "Oxbow Lake" doesn't flow because the ends are sealed.
> An "Oxbow" hasn't been sealed and if there is any flow it will be *downstream*, not in a circle. Most current will still be in the main river channel.
> ...


Your the only one that calls them a loop, everybody else calls 'em an oxbow.


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## Bearfootfarm (Jul 13, 2006)

coolrunnin said:


> Your the only one that calls them a loop, everybody else calls 'em an oxbow.


No, it's a separate term altogether.

It's a "loop" or "meander" *until* the current cuts through the neck, at which time it becomes an "oxbow". If the ends silt over, *cutting it off* from the river, it becomes an "oxbow lake"

Three totally different formations, hence 3 different terms.

http://www.mbgnet.net/fresh/lakes/oxbow.htm 



> (3) Over time the* loop* of the meander widens until the neck vanishes altogether.
> 
> (4) Then the meander is *removed from the river's current* and the horseshoe shaped oxbow lake is formed.
> 
> *Without a current* to move the water along, sediment builds up along the banks and fills in the lake.


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## Murby (May 24, 2016)

Bearfootfarm said:


> Water won't run uphill


Oh that's a good one... 

Next time I see a group of really stupid looking girls going tubing, maybe I should try telling them the river reverses direction after 5pm. You know.. the moon and all that.. 
:hysterical:


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## Fennick (Apr 16, 2013)

Murby said:


> Oh that's a good one...
> 
> Next time I see a group of really stupid looking girls going tubing, maybe I should try telling them the river reverses direction after 5pm. You know.. the moon and all that..
> :hysterical:


You might not be lying if they were tubing on a tidal river. I live near the coast in the land of water and bridges - you can't go more than 2 or 3 miles in any direction from any location without coming upon a body of flowing water - and a lot of the streams, rivers and lakes in this region are tidal. When the tide is coming in anything that is drifting downstream on the tidal creeks and rivers will drift backwards in the direction they came from or else come to a full stop until high tide is reached. Twice a day that happens.


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## tamarackreg (Mar 13, 2006)

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/oxbow


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## Bearfootfarm (Jul 13, 2006)

Murby said:


> Oh that's a good one...
> 
> Next time I see a group of really stupid looking girls going tubing, maybe I should try telling them the river reverses direction after 5pm. You know.. the moon and all that..
> :hysterical:


LOL
I've actually seen some of the rivers here run backwards when the wind and tidal currents worked together.


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## Bearfootfarm (Jul 13, 2006)

tamarackreg said:


> http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/oxbow


I don't think anyone is confused about the definition of "oxbow".
The confusion seems to be about how water flows in relation to them.


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## itsb (Jan 13, 2013)

I rember in school that rivers go from their starting point and go to a ocean or sea I guess they were lookin for Pokieman that class:bash:


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## Murby (May 24, 2016)

Fennick said:


> You might not be lying if they were tubing on a tidal river. I live near the coast in the land of water and bridges - you can't go more than 2 or 3 miles in any direction from any location without coming upon a body of flowing water - and a lot of the streams, rivers and lakes in this region are tidal. When the tide is coming in anything that is drifting downstream on the tidal creeks and rivers will drift backwards in the direction they came from or else come to a full stop until high tide is reached. Twice a day that happens.


Interesting.. Does that create any unusual effects like ecosystem changes or weird geological stuff?


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## Bearfootfarm (Jul 13, 2006)

Murby said:


> Interesting.. Does that create any *unusual* effects like ecosystem changes or weird geological stuff?


No, because it's been going on for many millennia.
There are lots of "brackish" water estuaries.
It can be irritating though, when you're trying to catch some Catfish, but the Blue Crabs keep stealing your bait


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## Elevenpoint (Nov 17, 2009)

I find it an interesting story, 3 miles, scratched up, clinging to trees. I've got way better stories canoeing than that one. They sound stupid more than anything.


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## Fennick (Apr 16, 2013)

Murby said:


> Interesting.. Does that create any unusual effects like ecosystem changes or weird geological stuff?


Here on the west coast it does. As BFF mentioned for his own location (east coast) this has been going on for millenia of course but the ecosystems here in the west coast rainforest and mountain regions are different from the east anyway.

Geologically, some of the freshwater tidal lakes have had big caverns created going inland into the mountains along the lake shores because of daily tidal action. Some of the hotsprings in the mountains will ebb and flow with tidal rivers / lakes.

Ecologically, there is a grey wolf sub-species known as red sea-wolves that live along the ocean coastline of British Columbia. Sea-wolves follow the tides to hunt and are just as comfortable living and hunting in water as they are on land. They hunt with the tides, swim many miles from island to island in the sea and use the incoming or outgoing tides to ease their way in the sea as well as up and down tidal rivers to about as far as 100 miles inland. So too do tiny Sitka deer whose range is from coastal Alaska south to central coastal British Columbia - they are a type of miniature sub-species of black tailed mule deer that have adapted to the sea for travelling in groups swimming across fijords and from island to island in the sea and up tidal rivers in hunt for greener pastures. 

Sea lions, sea otters, harbour seals, dog sharks and big, vicious tempered _Pacific bull sharks_! (I do not like _them_) ..... it's not uncommon to see any of them using the tidal rivers to visit and hunt in freshwater tidal lakes up to 60 or 70 miles inland from the coast. They generally stay for a few days to hunt in the lakes and then return to the ocean on an outgoing tide. No crabs come inland up the tidal rivers but lots of mussels and shrimp do. Also many sea birds that follow other marine life that come with the tides inland.

The sturgeons that live in the tidal rivers are giants by comparison with the sturgeons in non-tidal rivers.

There are probably a few other ecological adaptations such as coastal plant life that has come in and adapted to tidal river / lake habitats but the above are the main effects that I can think of.


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## 1948CaseVAI (May 12, 2014)

MO_cows said:


> Wonder if the person who told them that was just making a joke that they didn't get; or if they did it on purpose to screw with them? It was very mean if the latter. These girls apparently don't know the difference between a water park attraction and a real river. I bet there are quite a few people who are just as disconnected from the natural world.
> 
> Taking advantage of people's ignorance is pretty much just another form of bullying. I might think to myself that someone is dumb as a box of rocks but I'm not going to exploit that fact, especially not if it could get them hurt.


Oh lighten up! Good grief - if I encountered three bozos like that and they were asking stupid questions I would tell them something like that just for the sport of it.

In the late 60s, when many people still did not have air conditioning in their cars, I worked at a gas station and in the summer. When it was 100+ we told many, many people with out of state tags that they needed to have their windows rolled up tight so rattlesnakes didn't jump into their car from the road ditch. I can't even count the number of families that left the station in a closed car, sweltering.


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## Fennick (Apr 16, 2013)

That isn't sporting or funny, it's sadistic.


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## CurtisWilliams (Mar 14, 2005)

I look at it as thinning the herd. 

A simple fact: Unlearned people are multiplying faster than educated ones. Which leaves fewer resources for their offspring for learning. This is causing a dumbing down of much of our society.

I once had a roommate who didn't like the new light bulbs as it was too bright in the room. I told her that if she opened the curtains, it would let the darkness in. 

She opened the curtains.:bash:


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## itsb (Jan 13, 2013)

1948CaseVAI said:


> Oh lighten up! Good grief - if I encountered three bozos like that and they were asking stupid questions I would tell them something like that just for the sport of it.
> 
> In the late 60s, when many people still did not have air conditioning in their cars, I worked at a gas station and in the summer. When it was 100+ we told many, many people with out of state tags that they needed to have their windows rolled up tight so rattlesnakes didn't jump into their car from the road ditch. I can't even count the number of families that left the station in a closed car, sweltering.





Fennick said:


> That isn't sporting or funny, it's sadistic.


sounds like Fennick has out of state tags :hysterical:


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## MO_cows (Aug 14, 2010)

1948CaseVAI said:


> Oh lighten up! Good grief - if I encountered three bozos like that and they were asking stupid questions I would tell them something like that just for the sport of it.
> 
> In the late 60s, when many people still did not have air conditioning in their cars, I worked at a gas station and in the summer. When it was 100+ we told many, many people with out of state tags that they needed to have their windows rolled up tight so rattlesnakes didn't jump into their car from the road ditch. I can't even count the number of families that left the station in a closed car, sweltering.


Gee that must have been almost as much fun as tripping the kid with the leg braces.


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## tamarackreg (Mar 13, 2006)

CurtisWilliams said:


> I look at it as thinning the herd.
> 
> A simple fact: Unlearned people are multiplying faster than educated ones. Which leaves fewer resources for their offspring for learning. This is causing a dumbing down of much of our society.


While I agree with your sentiments, no one said these girls were uneducated.


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## CurtisWilliams (Mar 14, 2005)

tamarackreg said:


> While I agree with your sentiments, no one said these girls were uneducated.


O.K., then. Lacking in a basic understanding of gravity?

Any second grader knows (or should know) that water flows down hill.


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## hoddedloki (Nov 14, 2014)

So these girls were abused and taken advantage of? Seems to me that they failed to take responsibility for themselves, and failed to exercise something that the teachers union does not teach anymore; Critical Thinking Skills. If they earn a Darwin Award for their own failures, how does this hurt the species?

Loki


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## MO_cows (Aug 14, 2010)

Maybe I take it more seriously than some because here in Missouri there are a LOT of float trips and people get hurt and/or drown every year. So as mind boggling as it is that three adult women did not have a clue that a real river isn't circular, it still wasn't right to intentionally misinform them and put them at risk. And I'll repeat that there are a lot of people who have been so citified that they don't grasp that a natural river isn't controlled like a water park attraction. I've seen it on the Ozark rivers. Heard some princesses complaining that "they", whoever "they" is, should have put sand instead of gravel on the gravel bars and banks. Or complaining that nobody had removed the logs from the channel. And so on.


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## hoddedloki (Nov 14, 2014)

I had a witty response, but determined that it was no better than a 'well everyone else is doing it' response. I have seen such people as you describe, but I stand by my argument that the burden is on them to find out critical information about what they choose to do. Google should be their friend, even if just google maps, which I'm pretty sure they could access on one of their phones. It may be a crying shame that such ignorance exists, but we are not our brother's keeper, and we are not responsible for the actions of others.

Loki


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## PrincessFerf (Apr 25, 2008)

Nevada said:


> Strange story. Why were they hugging a tree, and how did they get all scratched up? Their entire journey was only 3 miles, so why didn't they simply walk back upstream to their car?
> 
> It's not like this happened in the wilderness. The entire incident happened right in the outskirts of Muskegon. If they wandered in most any direction the would have found a road, so they almost certainly would have run into someone who could give them a lift back to their car.


You are asking logical questions. I don't know if these young women had any sort of logic at all.


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## Elffriend (Mar 2, 2003)

I'm guessing they were hugging a tree because as little children they were taught to hug a tree. If you get lost in the woods, as soon as you realize that you are lost, stay put and hug a tree. Apparently hugging a tree calms little kids down and makes them feel comforted. They probably had that lesson in their heads and when they panicked, that's what they did.


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