Life by the river.

This is the Blue Hole! The blue hole is in my neighbors backyard across the road. There use to be a tree with a rope swing where the slide is.. but unfortunately the tree uprooted. There has been 3 Trees that we had used for the rope swing and every year one after the next the trees would uproot and fall. I spent most of my summers with my dad fixing the dock you see. (All except where the bench is- we had to rebuild.)

One day my brother, cousin and myself decided to float the river down to this Blue hole. We planned to float on a early Saturday morning. Richard (my brother) and I bought these tub looking yellow tubes. I say tub because they had a enclosed bottom so you wouldn't ever touch the water.

This is kind of like the tubes my bro. and I used. Except without the ducky head ;)

I was SO excited to ride in my tub tube! I felt like it was going to be like a canoe. Just the coolest thing ever! But when my cousin Ritchie arrived.. ='(

This is what my cousin brought.

THIS SIZE!

Two of them! Which both of course are way too tiny for my teenage cousin =( (Sigh) So little Robby's fantasy dream of riding down the river in his tub tube shattered to oblivion =/ I was dubbed to ride the baby tubes.

After we loaded up the tubes my dad drove us an hour or two up the river to start our  journey. For some STUPID reason we tied all of our tubes together. After we tied up the tubes we said a prayer asking for protection and off we went!

The smiley faces are Rich and Ritchie.. I'm the frown face because I had to sit backwards the whole entire time. I missed the ducks and ducklings.. lol Pretty much any wildlife.

We started in a canal parallel to the river. We felt that the river was too rough at that point and wanted a bit more of a beginners track. The float was fun. We saw some ducks... well Rich and Ritchie saw some ducks. I couldn't really see anything until we passed it. After about an hour the little canal started to veer to far in the wrong direction of the river. So we got out of the canal and moved into the river. The river moved faster than the canal. (Tons of fun!) Everything was a blast until we came to an island with two paths the channel to the left and the channel to the right. We started to paddle to the left but we weren't all that... synchronized in our paddling.. As well as our makeshift raft of tubes all that great at changing directions. The raft was sucked by the current to the right. As we came around the bend of the island. Rich and Ritchie started to act all frantic. They LOOKED scared. What was ahead of us in the river was a fallen tree. That had pushed a bush over. The whole water channel was blocked by this FREAK of nature! We paddle like crazy but all we managed to do was twirl the raft in circles. As we came to the tree/bush,... Right before we hit... My brother said jump! Over his tubes edge he went and disappeared beneath the green muddy water. I looked over at Ritchie and his face resembled my resolve. NO WAY! I'm not going to get off my tube! =( To bad I didn't get a choice. My tube over turned and out I went. As my tube flipped... I don't know how but the rope that we had used to tie our makeshift raft wrapped around my chest like a clothesline. I was caught. The current pushed me with a force that I couldn't overcome.... every time I struggled to break free of the rope. It would slide up my body closer to my throat.. until eventually... It did... My head under water, my body caught by this rope... plus the force of water current.. I couldn't break free..not with my own strength.... I remember praying in my head asking my Heavenly Father would if he would give me the strength to break free or that the current would lessen in force. With that prayer. I pushed with all I had and was able to rise above the water to get a gasp of air.. then down I went... I blacked out. The next thing I knew Richard called my name and I woke up floating sort of on my side/back past the entangled mess of tree/bush. Richard said that I  looked dead... after I had swam to shore. I asked were Ritchie was and Richard said he hadn't seen him since we hit the tree.. We waited for what seemed like an eternity.... I started crying because I had decided that Ritchie must have drowned... Richard was about ready to jump in after him... But That DARN Ritchie! Started laughing at us. when we hit the tree that monkey jumped right on to it and climbed to the edge. He was fine the WHOLE TIME! He just wanted to see what we would do. =S Our tubes were popped. It was getting dark so we walked to the nearest house to call my dad.  

That was our first float down the river. Since then we have always used tire tubes and NEVER EVER tied them together. I thank my Heavenly Father everyday for answering my prayer as well as the prayer of protection we had before we started our float. =D