Tuberating with nudists!

Ah, sweet summer! It's the lazy, hazy days that make you want to lie around and just take it easy. One of my favorite summer activities is tubing. Not the kind of tubing where you attach yourself to the back of a speed-boat and hold on for dear life while hurling down the river at 100 mph as your face ripples and warps like silly putty.

That's entirely too much work for me, and way too close to death or permanent disfigurement for my comfort.

No, I prefer the kind where you park your derriere in a giant air-filled doughnut and float s-l-o-w-l-y down the river while imbibing in whatever beverage you happened to bring along-- in my case, Vodka (I swear I must have Russian in my blood somewhere along the line.)

Because we conveniently live a short 100 miles from nowhere in all directions, there is exactly one place to tube, not counting the water-treatment plant, although in a murky river, who can tell the difference? I prefer to think of whatever brown things I see floating as a stick, not a turd and I just don't investigate.

We always go as a large group so reservations are necessary. This year, for our first annual trip, I reserved 18 tubes as usual. Upon arrival, we proceeded to sign in, where the woman behind the counter of the office (which is two buses welded together) asked us if we reservated.

I'm not kidding.

I assured her that we did indeed reservate. I explained that we even reservated two extra tubes for our coolers. That being settled, they taxied us up the river in our short bus, which is particularly appropriate for our group, but the driver took us to the wrong drop-off.

"Excuse me," I said. "We reservated for the six-mile, not the 2.5."

We all snickered.

He used his high-tech communication devise (walkie-talkie) to call the office. My husband looked at me and said, "He's confirmating."

Now we were really laughing.

By the time we finally got to the correct drop-off point any word with "ating" at the end was hysterical. Once in the water, we were manueverating to avoid driftwood and fallen trees. People in canoes were canueverating. We may not be the brightest bunch, but we do amuse ourselves.

Then, the best part of the entire day happened. As we lazily drifted, relaxed from the alcohol we were sipping, someone piped up.

"There's a canoe heading toward us with naked people in it!"

We shimmied up in our tubes to get a better view, and sure enough, there they were, paddling down the river completely au naturel!

"Good afternoon!" we greeted them.

"Hello!" They said, "Nice day isn't it?"

"Absolutely beautiful," we agreed.

Then, as they passed by, we turned our attention back downstream to see an entire fleet of canoes holding-- you guessed it-- more naked people! Apparidently we had reservated on the same day as a group of nudists.

They were a friendly bunch, but my guess is that people who enjoy canuderating are most likely not shy by nature so we weren't too surprised at their open and easy-going attitudes. We considered joining in, but there's just not enough Vodka in the world that would make me remove my clothing, especially with my bottom dangling in a creature-infested river and my top exposed to the threat of venomous spiders dropping out of trees, which is scary enough fully-dressed. I'm sure the men were also thinking about shrinkage.

We decided to enjoy our trip completely UN naturel.

I must say, though, that this was by far my favorite trip. Strange things frequently happen to us, and this weekend was certainly no exception.

I wonder what new and exciting experiences our next trip will yield. Clown posses? Just thinking about that makes me imagine 24 clowns jammed into one tiny little canoe. They will periodically paddle in circles while honking. One will look like Ronald McDonald and the new fun-word of the day will be anything with 'Mc' in front of it.

McTubing down the McRiver will McFun!