8 second Ride

Before you think rodeo and get all excited, let me reassure you that it was not a bull that I was on. Yesterday, I elected to relax and float the river with some friends. Last summer I purchased brand new tubes from one of the tire dealers here in town and never got to use them, so this was their first time being blown up and baptized. After our individual treks to our meeting place, a pow-wow to get everything situated in two vehicles, a proper packing of the beverage receptacle and a Baldwin sighting, we finally headed out to the water. Dropping of my car at the end point normally would have been easy if our other vehicle was not overloaded with tubes and people, so we had to make a run with cars before we actually got started. By the time we had everything actually in the water, it was extremely HOT outside and I was ready to be on the river. It was a good thing, too because after about 15 minutes of roping all of our tubes together and the cooler so it would be within a good tug of rope from any one of us, we were ready to go. Sounds relatively easy, right? Sure. Except my tube decided it was a bucking bronco. I sat on it and quickly landed upside down, feet in the air, under the tube in the river. Thanks for the refreshing dip! I tried it again. No go. This tube would not have me or my ass in it for any period longer than about 5 seconds. Fortunately, I traded my friend for her larger tube and this one was a steady ride. My tube did not cooperate with her, either in the beginning. It just did not want to let anyone on stay on it. I guess she is a better rider than me and finally lasted more than the 8 seconds, tamed the beast and held on for the duration.
So, after the inner tube rodeo, we finally started our float down the Madison. We had a great time. It was quite enjoyable just to relax, trade insults with each other and just enjoy the scenery. Of course, the boys were manning the cooler. Now how would you know that at some point, this was going to lead to trouble? Maybe because there were adult beverages involved? Each man had his own 32 oz sippy cup with Wild Turkey? Not sure, but a deviation from attention to cooler detail did lead us to two men flipped upside down, broken glass, a cooler wide open and half of what was in it happily floating down the Madison. A litter bug I am not. Things happened so fast I could not tell you what led to the demise of the cooler and the men. We all ended up bumped, bruised, wounded and scraped after that incident.
I will say, regardless of a snafu or two, we all had a great day, laughed a lot and enjoyed the fun. Ended the day with a BBQ at a friend's place. Women shopped. Men cooked. Everyone spiraled down pretty fast after all the sun and fun.