ozark visitor, CA - 07/11/2010

Here's how it went down,
I said I was an out of state novice interested in doing a relaxing three day float. Bill's wife Joanne suggested HWY14 bridge to Buffalo city. Two months later, after we'd given them 440$ and show up to do our float, the water level is at 2.5 feet. (very low) I NOW know that 33 miles when the Buffalo is at 2.5 is a looong trip. Why WOULND'T our outfitter tell us that when we show up? We would be MUCH better off putting in a little further down river so we don't have to paddle 7 hours a day. Well, this is why...
Bill likes to make the extra dollar. The HWY 14 bridge is basically in his backyard. He can get a quicker turn over and take more business in if he puts more people in at HWY 14. i.e. less driving, less gas, less hauling of canoes employees needed etc... Rather than look at us and say "you might want to shorten the distance, I'll drive and extra 13 miles to get you further down river so you can have that relaxing trip I told you you were getting" he asked us how we would like to pay for our accommodations. I was pretty amazed at how uninterested he was in our trip once he had our money. I would not recommend using this outfitter. There's cooler people right around there that are friendly Ozark folks with better gear and have an interest in helping you in having a good time. You can tell when a business wants nothing but in your pockets. Its tacky. Obvious. Its like a cheap suit, or in this case, a Columbia shirt with the sleeves rolled up and a cheesy cowboy hat in a Mazda Miada... (I'm not kidding)