Swimming of the Bulls

I hate cold water; hate, hate, hate it I tell you. I hated the swim test at scout camp when I was a kid. While on my mission in Mexico we didn’t have hot water heaters and I since I hated taking cold showers, I learned to lather, rinse, and repeat in 30 seconds flat. I’m certain I looked and sounded a lot like the Tasmanian devil on one of his slobber slinging rampages. It’s a good thing I’m skinny and don’t have much skin to wash. I hate water skiing, jet skiing, surfing, body boarding, and every other type of board-over-water type of activity. If it wasn’t for a little invention called the bikini, I’d never go. Good grief, I’m shivering!

This weekend, I went to Flaming Gorge and we decided to take an afternoon to run the river. When we first got to the river and I stuck my foot in to check the temperature, I nearly cursed out that infernal H20’s mother. And I almost walked on water as we pushed off from the shore. Needless to say, I was bound and determined not to fall in.

Our trip down the river started out okay, and except for my friends sprinkling some water down my back, it was a great time. Fortunately, I was on the fun boat. Unfortunately, those on the boring boat decided to get themselves out of there doldrums by ruining my calm and chasing off my chi. Water fights ensued. Luckily, I was sitting on the tail of the boat, where it is easiest to manipulate its direction, so I continually pointed the front of the boat towards the other raft, regardless of whether we were headed over some rapids or not. (Let’s not kid ourselves; the Green River below Flaming Gorge Dam doesn’t have any rapids at all, just a few speed bumpy ripples and some boulders to get high centered on.) The two girls sitting in the front of our raft were drenched to the bone. It was awesome! We also had better rowers, so we outran them for a while.

As we neared the take out, the other boat was frustrated with me using our girls as shields. They were able to sidle up to the front of our raft and grab hold. My buddy, who outweighs me by 50 pounds, crouched down in a Carl Lewis and began to charge. As he bull rushed me down the length of our raft, passing down the middle between the two girls and my two buddies with nostrils flaring, I stood up and braced myself. He lowered his shoulder, I swiveled my hips, and “Boom!” he flew right over the side. I raised my arms in triumph just like Nitro from the American Gladiators. He somehow managed to grab onto the side rope and as I went to finish him off, my two friends decided to rebel in mutiny and try to throw me over. As we fought and struggled, and pulled hair and bit legs, with my foot caught in a fishing net, scratches up and down my arms, and a few bruises from oar handles, I looked up from the bottom of that raft and wondered how it was physically possible for a dust cloud to form on the back of a drenched raft floating down the river, but it did. When the dust settled, I was still on the raft, King of the Mountain. One of my littler friends decided to take the chicken’s way out and swim around the back of our raft and pelt me with cups full of water, so by the time we got to the dock, I was as wet as anyone. But that didn’t matter, because the adrenaline helped ward off the cold and victory was mine.