Smokey Update #3 (cont.)

My worst idea ever...

Let's go tubbing on the river. Wait I mean "river." Sounds like a great idea, good fun. Except...

I've never been, didn't know anything about it, and had no clue what kind of questions to ask that would have given me the information I needed to make an informed decision before taking my three young children down the River Wild. In hindsight it is one of those things that makes perfect sense. Maybe taking three kids with one adult down an unknown "river" in an area that has been in a drought for a couple years, with one child who doesn't know how to swim and two who are lightly proficient swimmers was one of those things that takes a little more thought than, "hey, that sounds fun, let's do it."

Come with me on our trip down the, oh let's call it what it really was, stream interspersed with bits of river. We get to the office to pay for our tube rental and the workers see me with three kids by myself and just say, "Wow, you are going to do this by yourself? There was a mom with four kids earlier today." That would have been the excellent time to ask, "Did she survive?" But it didn't occur to me to ask. I go to pick out water shoes for us all, and they try to tell me I don't need to get shoes for Bug since he will just be in his tube the whole time. I thought about it for a second and realized that the boy gets shoes just in case and also if I am buying shoes for the other two I am not going to explain why he doesn't get any. This was the only good decision I made that afternoon.

Quick change, ride down the highway in the shuttle to the drop off spot where the crazy can begin. Right away it is a rocky stream where our butts get stuck on rocks every few feet and already I get separated from Punx and DD. It didn't last long and it went into exactly what I thought it should be. A slow moving relaxing trip down what appeared to be a river. I get the kids all rounded up after a little bit and just enjoy the ride, this is nice.

But it wouldn't be my worst idea ever if this was the whole experience now would it? Let's get to the screaming.

I see a rocky part coming and the water obviously is going faster. Alright kids get ready we can do this, let's stick together though. I teach them how to try and avoid the rocks by lifting the bum by straightening the body over the tube. It takes about thirty seconds for us to get separated again. Punx gets way ahead and DD way behind. She is now terrified, again, and screaming for me. But not in the helicopter funny way, I don't like this kind at all. I yell to Punx that he needs to stop and wait for us so he grabs onto a rock which happened to be some sort of lava rock that cut up his hand but the boy still won't let go until I am nearby. I had to talk DD down and explain how she had to get back on the tube and make her way down to me. This whole time obviously I had never let go for a second Bug's tube. We eventually get back together and the river comes back.

Nice float over, I see another rocky part coming. Alright kids, get out we are walking. On one side of the stream is a KOA and we just saunter on though on the edge of the stream until the river comes back again. It was a fairly easy walk, there was a pathway so not bad. Water shoes, good idea.

Nice float over, another rocky part. Get out. Now it appears we are walking through people's backyards. The kind where their yard just goes right up to the river. Now it is a little tricky, some of these yards have like patios up against the river and now there is a little more climbing involved and there is more walking over the stream's rocks. Man, this is not fun.

There are two more rocky parts but they don't seem bad. Kids, we can do it. It is small and it doesn't look long. We get through but not without my butt getting stuck while the older two were clinging to my tube. They kept going while I was stuck and it made Punx dump out. So I abandoned ship and flopped my way through while clinging to my tube and Bug's. The second rocky part is where it all fell apart.

Once again I made the decision that it wasn't bad and that we would get through it and once again my butt got stuck, but this time it dumped Bug. Before he could even go under I was off my tube and grabbing him up, just so you know all three kids did have on life vests. While I am securing him, his tube starts floating down the river solo. There is a fee for lost tubes. I throw Bug onto my big ol' tube and pushed all the kids into the shallow part where they won't float downstream. Now I try to rescue the renegade tube. Slight problem, the water is like 2 feet deep maybe less. And it is really rocky, you know it's a river. I can't run after the tube in that little water, I will biff it hard. So swimming it is. Anybody seen the Lord of the Rings movies? Where Gollum is fishing in the river? Now you have a visual of me swimming after this tube. I am flopping around, like a pasty chubby Gollum. But I was victorious. I go it and made my way back up stream to the kids.

Bug is sprawled across my tube clutching with all his might doing his "I am extremely uncomfortable" whine/cry. I grab him up and put him on the ground. The kids are ready to go but I inform them that I need a break. I just sit down right in the river and stare downstream and still can't see the end. Alright kids, mount up. They all start to whine.

Alright, new plan. I point to the direction that I know the highway is and say go that way, we are done. Once out of the river it turns out to be another campground. We are now walking through a campground. Bug turns to me and says, "Mom, that wasn't a good idea." Okay, let's be quiet and just get to the road maybe the shuttle will pick us up. I can barely see the highway when I see a shuttle go by, turns out it was the last one of the day. As I get to the opening of the campground, I ask the old man in chairs club how much more I need to go, oh, about 1/2 a mile. Well, get walking kids.

Now we are walking on the side of this highway. We are all in our swimsuits, carrying our tubes, except Bug, I am carrying his and mine. We walked maybe the equivalent of a block when I start laughing out loud. Mom, what is so funny? Guys, look at us, we are walking down this highway in our swimsuits carrying our tubes and I just took you guys on a really bad ride. DD, I don't see what's so funny. You will when you get older. When we got to the place, Punx said, "Well that was an adventure."

I got Punx and me some band-aids before we left and we just got in the car all wet and just went back to the hotel as is. Punx and I both cut our hands. I didn't even know about my hand until we were on the road. And we both have some great banana legs. He has some scrapes on his legs and from my floppy adventure I have some good bruises.

It wasn't until later that night with the kids asleep did I realize what a monumental bad idea it was. Things could've been so much worse. I still have some lingering resentment at the tubing place for not saying anything to me. Just a head's up, this might not be the best activity for you and your family. Seriously with what I know now, I wouldn't want to do that even with Dan's help.

So there it is, worst idea ever.