I don't know if you have ever had a look at the Guinness book of World Records but it's a pretty amazing thing to keep on your coffee table and is probably one of the only annual books that is actually a physical book that still sells like crazy year after year. This is because these records are things that can be accomplished by anyone and even though I don't know what the process is, you are probably allowed to create your own competition provided it is something that can be measured and verified.
Some of these records involve some really strange things and well, going down a river in a near 900 lb pumpkin with nothing but a life jacket and an oar, has to be one of the stranger ones.
The guy's name is Duane Hanson and he has been involved in growing oversized vegetables for a very long time. This is just a hobby of his, not a business. I guess I can understand why he would take on such a hobby because I have been to Nebraska, where Duane lives, and there really isn't a whole hell of a lot to do there.
The pumpkin weighed substantially less after it had been hollowed out and they still needed to be very careful when transporting it since without all the various internal components of the pumpkin it could break and that would put a stop to the attempt at breaking this rather strange world record right away.
He started out early in the morning and chose a river with a very mild current in it. He wasn't exactly trying to go flying down some rapids only to have his produce smashed to bits on the rocks. I don't know if they even have rivers like that in Nebraska. Given the topography, I doubt that they do.
The record was previously 25.5 miles that anyone has traveled in water on the inside of a pumpkin and Duane totally smashed that record by going a full 38 miles because somehow he had gotten word that there was another pumpkin sailor out there somewhere that was already working on 30 miles. Imagine being that guy who did the 30 only to later find out that it was all for naught!
Duane started at 7:30am and had broken the world record just before 3 in the afternoon. It wasn't until 6:30pm that he made it to the finish line at just over 38 miles. He said he was exhausted and this is completely understandable because if you look at the top picture, there wasn't really a lot of space inside of that thing to get comfortable.
I'm not going to call this "dumb" like I do with a majority of the news stories that I cover because Duane wasn't doing this for any other reason that because he thought he would give it a try. Will his name remain in the Guinness books for years to come? Who knows? I can't imagine that there are very many people in the world that have access to 900 lb pumpkins so I reckon Duane will live out his years always being in the book.
What a strange thing to be good at. Congratulations Duane!
