Don't Rock The Boat

Well I've been back in Spokane for the past few days, visiting friends and having a jolly time. One of the more adventurous jollies was a day of boating Monday with my friend Paul and his dad. They live very close to the river in Post Falls, Idaho and have a retro boat that they take out whenever possible in the summer. Naturally, I asked if we could schedule some time asea (ish) while I was there, and they agreed. We got the boat in the water, only to find that one of the gas tanks was nearly empty. No problem. Don (Paul's dad) decided that we'd run the first one dry and then put on the other. We'd only gone for about 5 minutes when that happened. We turned off the engine, attached the fresh tank, and at that moment the fuel line decided to give out. So, though we had a supply of gas, all we could get the motor to give was a forlorn sputter. Keep in mind that this boat was from about 1965 (yay! midcentury!), so a fuel line giving out wasn't especially surprising. We sat there in the water for a while and periodically drifted a little closer to shore with each passing wake. Fortunately, we had come to rest directly opposite some rich Idahoan's private dock, as opposed to a less-than-hospitable pile of rocks and algae. Also, it was an absolutely beautiful day. The water was a perfect temperature, the sun was shining, and we had a cell phone, corn nuts and water... not exactly life-threatening circumstances :-) Even so, sitting unintentionally motionless for an hour did put a damper on the day. I got off easy- handing Don tools from inside the boat and catching a sun tan, while he worked and Paul kept the boat from drifting away from "our" dock. Thanks to some electrical tape and a makeshift clamp, we were up and running by about 12:30 (thank goodness we'd gotten an early start!).

Then it was time for intertubing- something I've never been much for. I love lazily floating down the river on an intertube. I also love zipping down a waterslide, or small snow-covered hill, in an intertube. What I'm wary of is being towed behind a 40 year old 70 horsepower machine...on an intertube. I tried it once last summer, sitting in the intertube like a bucket and felt like I was in a paintshaker. I thanked the Lord for my lifejacket, not because it was added precaution against drowning, but rather because its high shoulders cradled my neck and kept it from snapping off. Paul told me, rightly, that that is not the most comfortable position for tubing, and recommended I try it stomach first this time. Okay.

People usually put their thumbs up or down to indicate their desired speed, but I pointed out that if I was going too fast, I probably would be too afraid to let go of a handle. So we decided to come up with a nice fun safe word... "Cricket" in this case. And they started dragging me.

Too many details aren't really necessary here. There were nice moments, the cool sprinkling water was lovely... and then I got to a point where I screamed "Cricket" until my voice was hoarse, was white-knuckling the handles, hanging on for dear life. Paul, though watching intently, was oblivious until I screamed what I should have in the first place.... "STOP IT STOP IT STOP IT!!" By the time I was pulled to a halt I was literally sobbing from stress. Judge me if you will, my reading friends- but I was pretty shook up (though not as literally shook up as the time I intertubed in the sitting position). I think it was also just one of those cleansing cries that you let go as a release when you've gone through something that kind of took your breath away. Through tears, I kept repeating over and over that I wasn't injured, so Paul and Don wouldn't think I'd lost a foot or something else awful. Then I said, "I'm just...gonna sit...in the water...for a while," and I let myself slide off the tube into the cool river. It felt glorious and was a major relief. The life jacket made my "sitting a spell" effortless and I could have stayed there a while longer. My boating companions obliged me. I apologized for my sobs, and they said it was okay. Despite a few freaked out moments, it really was a lovely day. Then we went to Panda Express, Borders, and Target. Yes, it was a lovely day.