Floating Away

People, this is a rough life.  The Rayman and I sit under four lumbering juniper trees which are providing glorious shade.  Besides the beautiful flowers and the other RVs, we can see one of the Sisters mountains, adored with snow and crowned with a huge thunderhead.  What’s not to like?  It is fabulous.

Yesterday was NOT  like today at all.  Today we are preparing to embark on the northernmost location  of our trip …to Portland.  When one gets ready to leave there are a myriad of tasks to be performed.  Washing.  This time moi did the duty.  And I did not use the dryer.  Clothes were hung in the RV for drying.  Then I needed to clean the kitchen so I could make brine for the bone-in pork chops that we plan to barbecue tonight.  Oh, and then I needed to blanch the string  beans.  Why is it one thing always leads to another?   Then I cleaned out the refrigerator.  A few things past their prime needed to be discarded.  No need to truck the tired cilantro to Portland just to throw it away there, is there?  Then clothes needed to be folded and put away as they dry very quickly here.   Ah, where was the Rayman you are asking.  He went to Sisters to wash the car and then to the ice cream store where he bought huckleberry ice cream to go with the recently purchased marionberry pie.  And a shallot, a lemon, a head of garlic.  The ice cream was not on my list but sure am glad he took the initiative.

Well.  Yesterday was quite removed from these types of domestic chores.  Yesterday we broke all the age records of the day.  We were, without a doubt, the oldest living things floating down the Deschutes River which intersects the city of Bend.  What a hoot.  No pictures to post because we were afraid of getting the camera/iPhone wet.  Perhaps your imaginations will prove better for us than the real thing!  This feat was performed when we rented two inner tubes in which we inserted our derrieres into the middle of and got our fannies nice and cold.  Everything else stuck out unless we voluntarily put our hands and feet into the swirling cold water.  We of course did that too.  That is because once you put the tube in the water and then you insert yourself into the tube, it became incumbant on you to guide yourself to the place where you took the tube and yourself out of the river.  And that had to be done twice.  Let me back up.

Click on the link below for a picture.

http://tumalocreek.com/river-tubes/

We rented the tubes from a young woman with no sense of humor whatsoever.  Tall, lean, rye.  We then signed away all our rights and plunked down $30 for the two of us to float down that river.  A young man then gave us two tubes and instructed us to carry the tubes across a nearby bridge, turn right, find the beach on the other side by “those trees over there”.  From there you float under two bridges and then exit the river on the other side from whence you entered.  Then you schlepp (my verb) the tubes up to the street where a city bus picks you up and transports you to another part of the river.  The city bus collects $1.50 each for the pleasure of the ride and we had to have correct change.  Yes, they will take wet money.  Then the bus takes you to another spot to put in, as it were.  Then you slither onto the tube and float again down the river.  But, don’t, don’t go over the dam.  WHAT?  Dam?  OMG.

Well, you know that bridge we had to cross on foot while lugging our tubes?  That is directly over the dam.  So, before you get to the dam, you must disembark your tube on the opposite side of the river…again…and bring the tube back to the tube rental business.  Well, that sounded easy.

What fun we had.  We verified that we were, indeed, the oldest people on the river and on the bus.  Except the bus driver.  He gave us a run for our money in the age department.  But we didn’t care.  We were thrilled to be there.  That is when I got the bright idea to spring the ambulatory people from the local rest homes/assisted living centers and bring them on down to the river.  I think they would enjoy the ride.  Assistance would definitely be required.  Heck, we could you have used some assistance!!

It was gentle.  Slow.  The only excitement was wrestling the tube at the start and end of the ride.   Rayman was a bit concerned (read really, really nervous) about missing the place to exit the river so he splashed feverishly when we approached the exits.  If you missed the exit, I’m not sure what would happen.  Perhaps if you could extricate yourself from the hole in the tube, you would find the river to be about 2 feet deep.  I don’t know.  All I know is that extricating yourself from the tube was a hoot.  Legs splayed.   Weight “rearranged”.  Crawling.  And many other methods of extrication were engaged.  The kids sprang forth from the tubes.  We lumbered.    Just like the rest of life at this point.

So glad we did it.  It was a blast.  And then we celebrated with  ice cream cones.




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