Post One Hundred Sixty Seven: Back from vacation

My family has just returned from a Caribbean cruise aboard one of the major cruise lines (not Carnival; we're not WT, after all). We all had a great time which was somewhat surprising since my wife's parents were part of the group. Given my history of vacations with her family, I was kind of dreading a similar experience. As it turns out, I am thinking that it is her sister that causes the drama. Good to know.

Anyway, the ship had something called a Flowrider on the top deck. Briefly, this is a flat surface that churns thousands of gallons of water across the top at a high rate of speed that allows you to boogie board or even surf across the top of it, all on about an inch of water. It all looked pretty cool so I signed up to try the surfing. A couple of suggestions for you if you get the chance to try one out:

One, don't.

Two, if you persist, make sure you put your dominant foot in the rear so you can actually put your weight on the back of the board. Jesus.

If you couldn't guess, I failed to follow either of my own suggestions. I had my left foot in the back and for the life of me I couldn't shift my weight to the rear. The instructor, nonetheless, eased me out and as soon as he let me go I said "Nope," and fell flat ... no, not flat. That gives me too much credit. I completely crumbled into a ball and somehow landed on the left side of my neck and head on a surprisingly firm surface covered only by a thin sheet of water.

Needless to say, that smarted.

I found myself spinning on my back on this thin sheet of water in front of God and everyone on the cruise ship. Once I stopped turning I stood up, jumped over the barrier, and walked over to my wife and kids to get my towel. I have no qualms about admitting that this was probably the worst attempt at surfing the Flowrider during the cruise.

After hiding in my room for a sufficient period of time (overnight, to be exact), the next day I decided to give the rock-climbing wall a go. My oldest daughter (age 9 ... NINE!!) had done it a couple days earlier and I have to say it was impressive as hell the way she just scrambled up the side. So I lace up the climbing shoes (they actually had a size 15, shockingly) and made my way to the head of the line. I am then directed to the stone column ... not the wall. I found out later (courtesy of my expert rock-climbing daughter) that this was a more advanced course. I am guessing they saw a 6'5" somewhat muscular guy and figured I should give that one a try.

Gads.

Anyway, I made it up about 4/5th's of the way up to the top and got to a point with my toes perched on a couple small rocks and my right hand in a death grip around another. As you hug a stone column about 25' off the ground, you start to realize just how high up you really are. You also look down and see the person holding your line and start to wonder if he can prevent 225 lbs of flailing limbs from landing in a broken heap below.

You also realize that hugging a column dwelling on such thoughts tires you the fuck out.

My left hand desperately searched for a grip on the left side so I could support my weight and lunge for the rock about 6" above my right hand. It might as well have been a mile since there was absolutely no grip on the left to be found. Realizing that it was pretty much hopeless, I made a weak lunge at the grip only to fall off the wall and was steadily lowered down the column with no joy of ringing the bell at the top.

Oh, well.

My failures notwithstanding, it was a great week. We all had fun and a much-needed break. Looking forward to the next vacation, maybe an adult trip with friends to Cabo next summer.