Good Ol' Days!

Sometimes as grownups, we forget that the stories of our youth can sometimes amaze and amuse the young people in our lives.   A couple weeks ago, my son and I were driving in the car ... I'm not sure whether a song came on the radio, or we saw something that made me remember this story.....

I was about 15, going on 16, and had recently begun dating a boy named Steve.  As it is with teens, we wanted to be together as much as possible.  And my folks finally succumbed to some wheedling about letting him come along on a family camping trip to Tuolumne River (yeah, I had to Google it - its outside Yellowstone Park area).  Being summer, it was hot, and we drifted around on inner tubes on the river; very refreshing and relaxing.  

We also had a two man inflatable boat along.  And since we'd seen a few of these heading down river, Steve got an idea that we should do it too.  We asked a few of the people, and they said they put in at a bridge a couple miles up the road and just drifted downstream.  Sounds easy, fun even!  So Dad loads us up along with the boat and drives us to the drop-off place.  Setting the boat in the water, Steve and I hopped in, each grabbing an oar and begin to paddle our way to the middle of the river.  Once there, we discover this is a rather slow moving river, so we needed to paddle just to keep moving.

At first, all's fun.  We paddle along, looking at the scenery.  But after a a length of time (I'm guessing 20 or 30 minutes into our trek), the scenery looks the same all the way.  Lots of meadow grasses, rolling hills and a slow moving river.  I think we would have made better time walking and carrying the boat back than we did paddling our way down river.  But we were kids, and had to prove ourselves and our decision to the adults who thought we were crazy, right?

About halfway into our trek, we come across "the rapids" part of the river.  Yes, it actually got faster at one point.  But it was more like a narrow creek.  We paddled and "rode out the wild waves" -- well, ok, we glided along at a better pace than the slow river had been, but it wasn't a pace that would set your heart racing!  It was a very short ride, and when we got to the end, we decided to carry the boat back to the start and ride it again!  As we meandered along the bank of the river, boat and oars in hand, just to our left, there was a cow grazing in the grass.  Almost looking as if he were wondering what these crazy teens were up to! 

After we raced through those rapids again, it was back cruising down the lazy river (I know there's a song to that effect...!!!)  We finally arrived at the portion of the river near our campground.  What was supposed to be only a couple hours, turned into an all day trek and we'd nearly missed dinner!! 

Can't you just picture this?  I'm laughing as I remember the crazy stuff we used to do.  Funny how memories of things come and go in our minds.  On this trip, I remember listening to Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" album on 8-track.  I remember riding my orange 10-speed bicycle.  And I remember getting blisters on my pinkie fingers because of the way I held the handlebars, and I was riding on gravel from camp to the game room and back.   (And since I'm also working on a project of scanning old slides, maybe I"ll run across a pic or two of this trip!  Will post if I find anything)