4th of July trip report 2000
July 4th
I won’t be able to send this until probably Wednesday (no phone line), but thought I’d type it up anyway. It’s 11:30 here and I’m just about to crash. Let’s see, here’s my extremely long report for the day.
Steven (older brother) and I got up around 10 after being harassed by dads phone calls. After showering and waiting for Steven’s laundry (always planning ahead, he is), we tried to head out. Rachelle and Lillia (sis-in-law and niece) are in Seattle and are flying back tomorrow morning. Steven was supposed to leave the Jeep at the airport for her, but that would mean we couldn’t go wheeling together today. We just couldn’t have that. After almost an hour of phone tag it was decided that we could take the Jeep, she would taxi to mom and dad’s and get mom’s car. Good deal, great plan, off we go.
The drive to the cabin was almost uneventful. Almost. I started to pass another car, which began as a wonderful idea. It’s surprising how quickly other people’s wonderful ideas can make your wonderful seem not so wonderful anymore. So I’m passing this car, and some dude decides to pull off the side of the road into traffic. Coming the other direction. Towards me. Right about at the exact spot where he wasn’t at just a second before. My only real option was to slam the gas and drift over towards the guy I was passing. He, not having many wonderful ideas of his own, decided to slow down and give me some room. While I made it through unscathed, both of the other individuals were certainly less than pleased with my performance. Imagine being the guy pulling out though. You’re leaving the side of the road merging into traffic. You’re looking in your side mirror to see if you’ve got room. Oooh, it’s close, but you go anyway. Better stomp on it, you think. Turn your head to the front and … uhh … shit. I’m thinking that was probably the largest Jeep emblem this guy had ever seen. 
Got to the cabin, sat around, watched the dogs frolic, listened to a non-stop barrage of “fat girl” jokes aimed at my dog Toby. She didn’t seem to mind, confident as she is with her robustness, so I let it continue. My parent’s dog Murphy, my brother’s dog Levi, and Toby ran and played for hours. Amazing how much energy is packed into such small packages (with the exception of the fat girl).
We left after too long and dropped the boat in the water. Fun to skim across the water that fast. Ok, maybe it wasn’t that fast, but it seemed like it. I had tears running back into my ears from the wind. Shoulda brought my shades. Crossed the lake and got back to the cabin. Want to go wheelin’? No. Want to go skiing? No. I didn’t really feel like doing much of anything. I thought, hey, I’ll take the little paddle boat out around the island. You know, the kind you sit in and peddle your ass off to reach 1/2mph? Perfect.
Ok, so the boats are all chained to the tree out front. I got the key from dad and went down to unlock the boatcycle thing. Oops, wrong chain. I didn’t remember there being more than one.
Now, keep in mind that the following events took place in a span of less than 4 seconds.
I walked around the tree to get to the other lock. Whoa, lookee there, a bees nest right next to the lock. I should probably be kinda caref … BAM! Bee sting right between the fingers. Surprising how quickly those little bastards can get you. The next 20 minutes of my vacation was spent balancing an ice cube on my hand. The 20 minutes following that was spent alternately spraying the nest with bug stuff, and running for my life squealing like a little girl.
With the nest sufficiently razed, I took the boat out around the cove and island. What great deal that was. Totally calm, totally quiet and peaceful. It is, however, one of those activities that’s infinitely more enjoyable with a companion. Oh well, can’t have it all. Beached the boat, sat around, ate cheeseburgers, sat around some more. Decided to go kneeboarding. This was not one of my more wonderful ideas.
Steven, dad, and I hopped in the boat and headed out to deeper water. I jumped in with the board and grabbed the rope. Now, the trick to these things is you start out on your stomach until speed makes the board more stable. Then you’re supposed to shimmy your knees up underneath you and eventually kneel on the board, all the while hanging onto the rope with one hand and the tip of the board with the other. A stoned three-legged monkey could do it, but could I? Under normal circumstances, yes. Today? Today was a circus attraction. There were so many boats on the lake that there was really no calm water. Basically I held on for deal life while being pounded senseless on top of this speeding plastic rocket ship. I lost count of how many times the board, with me on it, completely left the water. That’s actually kinda cool. The coming down part is not quite so cool. Board goes WHUMP WHUMP WHUMP. Jason goes GRUNT GRUNT GRUNT. Steven almost wrecks the boat since he’s laughing so hard. Kneeboarding sucks.
Ok, screw the board, give me a ski. This’ll be sooo much easier. (insert maniacal laughter here). Ski on? Check! Got rope? Check! Got balls? Check! GO! Vroom! And away we go! I was just about to come up out of the water when … did the ski rope just snap in the middle, come reeling back towards me, and coil itself around my head and neck? Check! More laughter echoing from the boat. Not so good. We tied the rope back together and gave it another go. This time I wouldn’t have made it up anyway. I’m guessing that the ski must have seen a sexy female ski nearby, as it decided that it’d had enough of this shit. The ski slowly swept its way around my left and ended up behind me. This, of course, turned me into a human torpedo. Hmm … maybe I should let go of the rope now that my lungs are half full of water? Oh gee Jas, there’s no need. The rope decided that it’d had enough as well and snapped about 4 inches from the last break. My day of watersports had just come to an end.
The rest of the day was pretty slow, finished of with my dad and I sitting by the fire on the beach talking about chicks.
More to come tomorrow, if I survive it.
July 5th
Well, I don’t remember which days we did what, but I’ll try to get this in chronological order.
We went out 4-wheeling a bunch of times (of course) and tackled our old road. It was just as steep as I remember, and I was a little uncertain that my Jeep would make it. Great road, and a fantastic view from the top of the mountain. Unfortunately the dirt on the mountain is rust red and my Jeep was completely covered with it. I stopped using my rear-window washer after too long, as it really wasn’t doing any good. Funny part was that anything that someone had touched was a dust magnet. My stereo, steering wheel, and inside door panels had little red splotches all over them. It looked like someone had dusted my Jeep for prints. That, and my entire dashboard had a pink tint to it when the sun would hit.
We ended up taking Chris (younger bro) up on Tuesday morning in his new Wrangler. He hadn’t taken it off road yet, but somehow ended up in the lead. Steven and I had a real tough time keeping up with him, even though Ric (youngest bro) was standing up on the back seat of the Wrangler hanging on for dear life. Wacky kid, but it was funny as hell.
We did a little shooting at the top of the mountain. Took my rifle out and Chris had a box of golf balls. Fun to poke through a golf ball from 100 yards out. Unfortunately Steven forgot his rifle at the cabin so he wasn’t all that thrilled about the trip.
After the trip I had a hankerin’ for a boat trip. I really wanted to go alone but dad and Ric hopped up to join. Ok, fine, let’s go. They both said to wait so they could put their suits on. I sat, and sat, and sat. A half-hour later I went to the beach alone, hopped in the boat, turned the key, again, and again, and again … and killed the battery. I was just shy of full-on cranky at that point. Steven drove his Jeep down to the lake and jump-started the boat, but by that time I had lost interest. So now what? Ooh, I’ll take the stupid paddle boat out again, and I think I’ll take Toby with me this time. I loaded her into the boat, which was an event itself, and headed out down the inlet. Apparently they got the ski boat back in shape, because Ric came down the inlet after me. Ric, being the little heathen that he is, decided it’d be fun to buzz his older brother, which he did. Over and over Ric zoomed by me in the ski boat slowly filling the paddle boat with water. After a while we thought it’d be fun to pull the paddle boat with the ski rope. As you know, my vacation has been chock full of bad ideas, and this was no exception. Ric threw me the rope, I sat in the middle of the paddle boat to balance it out, and Toby perched precariously behind me. Rick took up the slack and we started to go. All was going wonderfully until a wave came crashing over the bow of the paddle boat and filled up whatever remaining dry space there was. With the boat completely flooded the bow began diving into the depths of the lake with me and Toby aboard. Unfortunately letting go of the rope came a bit too late. While the boat didn’t pitch over forward, the ass end came out of the water far enough to dump my Hooch Lemon Brew overboard. Dammit. I had just opened that one too. Guess I’ll have to head back to get another. Do you have any idea how slow those little boats move when they’re completely full of water? My legs were jelly by the time I got back. Toby was also not very pleased with me.
I was greeted with much laughter and cheering as I peddled my Lil Titanic back to shore. Shortly after I was asked to fill in at a beach volleyball game. This was useful only in illustrating yet another thing that I suck at, but enough about that.
Later that night we all sat around the fire pit by the water and laughed our asses off. Some of Chris’s friends were there, plus Ric, mom, dad, and me. After the mini-keg and bottle of tequila, there were things said that night that are likely never to be spoken of again. It got bad enough that mom left in perplexed disgust. She was laughing, but not very happy with herself for doing so. Something about having to maintain the parental role I suppose. One of the funniest things had to do with Chris’ dog Henry. Henry is a 190lb English Mastiff. Biggest dog I’ve ever seen. Well, Henry was standing with his head on Chris’ lap, which put is rear end near the fire. His butt, being wet from a recent swim, started to steam before too long. Nobody seemed to notice for some time, especially Henry. Someone finally piped up with the Quote Of The Week. “Chris … I think your dogs ass is on fire.” Quite the moment in Fish family history.
This very active 4th of July weekend was brought to a close in a pretty exciting manner. We were all pretty beat by this time, so rather than stand around lighting fireworks, we just sat on our asses and threw whole packages into the fire pit. 30-shot Saturn Missile Batteries went in, as did 12-packs of whistling bottle rockets. These were joined by 100-count strings of firecrackers and roman candles. Some landed upright, some not so exactly upright. There were colored balls of flaming magnesium and glowing embers flying every which way for over an hour. All in all, quite an exciting evening.