tubing plus rapids equals awesome

ok, raise your hand if during your time at UF, you did not partake in tubing on the ichetucknee river or the santa fe river or go to the springs, be they blue, ginnie, poe, et al? not too many out of you gators, eh?

imagine your best day ever at ginnie springs. temps in the mid 80s. cloudless skies. not too many gilchrist county residents. nary a pair of cutoff jean shorts in sight. cold beverages. attractive co-floaters, whatever your persuasion. got the day in your head?

it can't even hold the proverbial candle to sunday when we went tubing for an early birthday trip. keep the weather, lack of jean shorts, beverages, and floaters. add rocks and rapids, and you have tubing on the potomac river in west virginia.

i realize that some of you may not know what tubing is. take an innertube, fill it with air, and float down a river. most often, the float is on calm, flat rivers. butts tubing thought to themselves, "butts old pal, let's see how many crazy city folk will go tubing down rapids in these $5 tubes and pay us $30 a piece for the privilege. we'll buy an old school bus or two, some trailers, get some slick suit to write up a waiver, and they'll come in droves."

and we did. on our bus to the river, which is in a national park, oddly enough, there were three groups. we were rolling ten deep; we were the smallest group! there were groups of seventeen and twelve, all of us rip roaring ready for a lazy day.

lazy it was for the first half hour or so. then the fun began. rapids added to the equation, especially with a cooler tethered to your tube, makes it a lot more fun. everyone in our crew lost something of value, we all got tipped, and we all had a blast. i smell a new summertime tradition!