I meant to post this a while ago. I am slammed these days, but I sent a friend the following email... someday I'm going to write a book and it will be called "Yep, That Really Happened!"---
So I totally missed you yesterday. I went up to The Future 'Hood for the weekend - which of course is always COMPLETELY awesome! It was a friend's 40th birthday - her hubby gave her a Rolex so now they are Mr. and Mrs. Rolex. They live right on the creek, and they threw a big party at their house Saturday night. It sort of ran over into Sunday... which I think was intentional. Sunday morning we all had bagels, mimosas, bloody marys... then they decided we should go tubing on the creek, since it was such a beautiful day (as it always is in CO!!)
Now everyone on their street has these great big inner tubes, like the truck tires, but they are covered with canvas so they have a bottom to them and handles. They're pretty sweet. Well after a couple floats down the creek (which is only about 150 yards or so) someone decided we should take the tubes over to the big river - the Roaring Fork, which is not huge but is a pretty big river, about 50-75 feet wide. Everyone is game for "the float." Mr. Rolex shuttled his 4Runner downstream a couple miles for transport back to the house after our little river trip.
So there were eleven people, six of us are carrying these tubes and then we had two big rafts - not as big as rafting rafts, but the duckies if you know what they are. We looked pretty ridiculous traipsing across all this acreage with these inflatable toys on our heads, shoulders, etc. Fifteen minutes later, we get up to the river and it is MOVING. I mean, it was
so high... I was kinda scared. Which of course here in LizLand means I should just do it. :)
We decided one raft with two people would go up front to lead the way, and then Mr. and Mrs. Rolex would be in the raft at the back in case anyone got in trouble, and the rest of us were in our own tubes. We all put in and shoved off - and ladies and gents, it didn't matter how hard you held onto your hat - there was a wild ride a-comin'!!!
First of all, the river was so freaking fast (I think I said that already!) Then it was a WHOLE lot of work to keep yourself going the right way, like NOT into the big water.... you were sitting in the tube on your back and had to paddle like crazy with your arms, so it was a workout (something I always love). Lady H flipped over pretty quickly and she lost her tube. She got kinda banged up before Lord grabbed her and they rode down together until Mr. and Mrs. Rolex could paddle over to them. They took Lady in the raft, and Lord actually got out of the river in case any of the rest of us got into trouble.
Well I was next to go for a swim! I was worried about Lady and not watching the river (yes, I do know better), so I got too far over to the side with the big water... and then couldn't paddle myself out, so tried to just ride it out... no such luck. I went over but didn't lose hold of my tube and was able to pop back onto it pretty quickly.
Then about ten minutes after that, it happened AGAIN!!
[Must... stop... looking at scenery... pay attention.... to big rapids....] Only that time, I couldn't pull myself back on the tube because I was stuck in some big water which was really freaking scary and my heart was going like 900 bpm. !!!! BUT I was finally able to kick myself over to the side of the river and stand up, regroup and get situated back on the tube. I pushed off again and this time there was no more cloud watching, just paddling myself down the right parts of the river.
It was CRAZY. We have had so much snow this year and the river was running so high, we had no business being on that river in tubes. But MAN we had a good time, and I totally thought of you because it completely felt like something we would have gotten into (though maybe you wouldn't have because of your other raft experience... I don't know). It was really freaking fun.
Oh and the funniest part - we got out of the river just past Mr. Rolex's 4Runner. Well here comes Lord, rolling up on the back of a lawn tractor. One of the grounds keepers from the golf course gave him a ride down to us. He was super nice, and even gave Lady a ride to the 4Runner (we had overshot it just a bit and she had lost her shoe in her swim).
Once at the car, we deflated one of the rafts and one of the guys sat up front with it on his lap. We put three tubes in the back, then three guys on the tailgate holding three more tubes, and then the other raft (which couldn't be deflated) was up on the top of the car. There were four of us on the middle seat of the car, and the last guy had to ride ON THE HOOD of the car. We were only going like three miles through the ranch to get back to the house but MY GOD we looked so redneck... it was hysterical.
Well, about halfway back to the house, that same groundskeeper Lord had ridden with was standing in the road in front of us and his trusty lawn tractor was on the side of the road. Mr. Rolex slowed down, I was sure the guy was going to tell us we were totally illegal, he can't let us pass like that, etc. So Mr. Rolex asks him what's going on and the guy says:
"You know how one hand washes the other? I'm out of gas... can I get a ride?"
And this is the point where Mrs. Rolex says "
Are we on TV? Seriously! You can't make this stuff up!"
So
he hopped on the hood, too!!! Twelve people, six inner tubes and two rafts on the car... completely ridiculous!!!! (There must be some song about stuff like this, somewhere!)
But yeah, just another lovely Sunday in Colorado. Man I love it here!
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