Admittedly, I could do without the sunburn, but once I learn to put on suntan lotion (and not assume that I’ll be fine without it), I’ll be golden. Which is better than bright red.
Things got started yesterday when I told Matthew Feeney that I could join him and three others for a boat ride in Prior Lake the next morning. He said that was cool, gave me the address to meet everyone and said to be there around 9:15. Matthew showed up closer to 9:30, but he had stopped to get ice for the cooler so we’d have cold Coke to drink out on the lake.
We got some good news when he got there. We needed to bring the boat back around noon so it could get cleaned up and prepped for the next group of people who had it reserved for the afternoon (thus, the boat needed to be ready by 1:00). Turns out they called in and said they’d get to the docks around 4:00, so we had a couple extra hours to use the boat.
When we headed out onto the water, it was awesome. The temperature was warm, but not hot, the sun was shining, there were no clouds in the sky, a slight breeze… gorgeous conditions to spend hours on a pontoon boat in the middle of a lake. We spent the first part of it cruising around for a bit, then decided to drop anchor and fish for a while.
Technically, I guess the others fished while I was hanging out in the boat, but it was all good. They tried using lures, bobbers with… well, I’m not sure what they had on the hooks initially, but they got the most nibbles with the bait that Matthew brought along: raw bacon. Unfortunately, no one caught any fish, but they enjoyed fishing nonetheless.
Of course, we did more than fishing in the lake. Matthew and one of the kids had been on the lake earlier and knew about a couple of abandoned houses and a trail that led to another small lake, so we ended up on the shore to do a little exploring. The houses were pretty busted up with glass all over the place, one had shit in the attic (and when I say “shit”, I’m talking about human poop), and there was an easy chair up in a tree. Why it got put up there, I haven’t the slightest idea, but it was wedged between some branches at an awkward angle, so the lightest kid in the group (about 115 pounds) climbed up and got his picture taken while sitting in the chair.
The “small lake” was pretty much just a pond covered with algae, but Matthew wanted to try fishing in it anyway. He got off to a rough start when his first cast went up and over a power line, but after that… no fish. However, there were geese there. They were afraid of us.
We could tell because when we first got there, they all swam to the far side of the pond. Later on, one of the guys snuck around to the other side and scared them all away. Well, all but one. I’m not sure if it was injured or what, but instead of flying away, this goose ducked its head down to almost water (algae) level and started swimming away from him. And then we steered it in the other direction by throwing rocks into the water towards it. Bizarre.
Eventually, we decided to head back to the boat and went cruising around for a while. But we needed to do more than just cruise and fish. We were on a boat in the middle of a lake on a beautiful day: we needed to go swimming. One person didn’t want to and was resisting all efforts at peer pressure, so what did I do? A cannonball. Right next to the boat. And the water splashed up, over the seat of the pontoon boat and got him wet. Word.
Another was willing to go swimming, but didn’t have a suit. The best alternative to jumping in fully clothed? Jumping in au natural, of course. I don’t think there were any other boats around to see him, but even if there had been, I don’t think he would have cared. There was just one problem: he got on top of the seats to do a backflip into the water. He landed feet first, which was good, but it also meant there was nothing to protect his nuts from slapping directly onto the water. Ow.
But that last kid finally caved, so we were all in the water and some more of them were doing flips off the boat. One kid had never tried a backflip off the top of the seats before, so we explained that you didn’t need to worry about tucking too much, just jump and throw your arms back to help you rotate. Well, he didn’t throw his arms back. His arms made it about halfway up, then he grabbed his nose to plug it when he jumped. Consequently, he smacked his face onto the surface of the water. Ow again.
Later on, we were moving along at a decent pace and saw another pontoon boat coming toward us. It turned out to be a group of girls (vs. our boat of all guys). As we passed, one of them said, “Hi, boys.” On cue, one of the guys who was sitting on top of his seat turned to wave and turned himself right over the edge of the boat and into the lake. It was really funny (except for the bong on the side of the metal pontoon—thankfully, it was his elbow instead of his head). Then to top it off, as we stopped, one of the guys yelled, “HE CAN’T SWIM!” and dove off the back of the boat toward him. (They both swam up to the boat, but I can only imagine what the girls were thinking after all that happened.)
But even with all the minor mishaps and injuries, it was still an awesome day. But not golden. Nope, it’ll take a bunch of cold showers and a few days with my body covered in aloe before all the redness goes away.
