My wife's family has a really fun tradition of meeting up on the Current River in the Ozark region of Mizzou for a weekend float. We usually meet and camp at a big group area in a state park at Round Spring. There are plenty of floaters but most are canoes and kayaks and the float is a nice quiet one. I usually fish here and there along the way. Canoeing there is basically using your paddle as a rudder and your other hand for a beer.
This year we rented rooms at a place called The Landing a ways on down the river. We floated it in tubes. Julie and I each had a tibe and we had a cooler tube tied off too. There were so many floaters it was like freaking Woodstock. The scenery was unbelieveable.
It really wasn't my cup of tea though. In the middle of all these people, people were powering through in 18 ft jons with 40 horse jet outdrives. And when i say powering up I mean on plane right up through the middle of a river full of tubers. Bunches of them. The typical setup wasa jon boat with a bimini, a chick laying on the front deck and a couple of tatted up thirty somethings sitting in the seats in Raybans.
I told them even though we had a good time, next year we'd be camping somewhere on a quieter part of the river.
And my poor nose took beating from the sun.

BKB