Over the weekend, I journeyed to city that houses God's House (Neyland Stadium for those of you not familiar with my unique turns of phrase) for my family reunion and to hang out with the gang from the
Inn of the Last Home.
A few days before I headed over, Barry teased me with a message that said--make sure to bring swim stuff as we're going up to some mutual friends place on the lake and there will be swimming and SeaDoos.
At this point, I immediately got pretty excited because I'd always wanted to ride a SeaDoo and now, here was my chance.
I'm proud to say that I successfully rode a SeaDoo yesterday. Not only rode behind it on a float, screaming and having a great time but also drove one for a good bit as well. OK, I essentially made one huge giant circle in the lake, but man, it was just awesome. I was just like James Bond would be if if were older, didn't have a license to kill, wasn't wearing a tux and wearing a life jacket for his own safety. (Bond almost never wears a life jacket, thus being a horrible example to small children).
Now, earlier in the day, Barry had got on the SeaDoo and tried it out. He was doing OK, but at one point he flipped over because he wasn't going fast enough. He was close to shore and only had to swim in three miles (I'm kidding it was more like 50 to 60 feet out), but as I observed his riding the SeaDoo and listening to the instructions of our friends who owned the equipment, I quickly made a determination. If I'm going to drive and flip out and look like a fool, then by golly I'm going as fast as I possibly can and make sure it's truly spectacular and something people will talk about for years to come.
Now, as some of you may know, I've wasted a lot of time over the years watching repeats of
Happy Days. Or so I thought--until I used that knowledge of seeing how Fonzie got on his bike to help me get on the SeaDoo. Then, I powered it up and took off. Now, at first I didn't go too far because, well, I was trying to get a handle on the whole going really, really fast on the water thing. It felt like when I first got behind the wheel of a car in driver's ed and it felt like you were tearing up the road at 900 MPH when you were really just going in circles at 10 MPH tops and being passed by guys on bicycles.
After a few test runs and some pointers from my buddy, David and his wife, Natalie, I took off and gunned that puppy way up. Man, it was cool. The wind in your face, the speed, the waves splashing....I have to admit it was pretty all-around cool. I had visions of myself riding across the lake to help Sarah Michelle Gellar take out vampires or maybe to cruise in at the crucial moment to defeat the Daleks...or most likely not get too far out of sight and have everyone wonder if I was ever coming back. I wanted to thrust up my hands and yell, "I'm king of the world" like from
Titanic, but quickly decided against this since a)I'd have to admit I'd seen the film and b)I'd take my hand off the gas, thus coming to stop and ruining the moment.
So, I cruised a bit, had a great time and then went back in. In all, it was maybe ten minutes out driving the SeaDoo, but those ten minutes were, for lack of a better word, just awesome.
It really made driving back to town seem to pale by comparison. I mean sure, I tried to hang my head out the window and recreate the effect, but it just never did feel the same....
So, to sum up--SeaDoos are awesome.
But not nearly as awesome as the time spent with good friends. But that's another post for later...
posted by Michael Hickerson at 8/07/2006 09:48:00 PM |
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