Retraction

You know how the other day I said, "We'll never be too old for adventure, and we will never be beaten by Mother Nature."? Well, I think She heard me and like any good Mother, She set out to prove me wrong. When my boys were small, I used to put on my angry face and tell them, "you may grow up to be bigger than me someday, but just remember this, you will never be meaner. " Then I would pray they never tested me on it because everyone knows, the truth of the matter is, a fluffy white bunny looks like a vicious killer next to me. I learned very quickly, though, that Mother Nature does not rely on the art of intimidation. She is true to her word. And so, I offer a modification to my previous claim based on the adventure de' jour.

We checked the weather report and learned, it's unreliable. But based on the report we received, and due to the encouragement of my son, we decided on this: Jay's last day before heading out to the red sands of the North African desert, we would take the Jane Louise and test her out on the waters of the American Falls reservoir. I grew a little anxious as the winds started to increase, but driving along in the shelter of the cab of the truck, they didn't seem too bad. As we pulled in to Seagull Bay to launch, the dock master met us and talked to us about the best places to fish. I think my concern started to increase about the time he told us to watch the weather and the waves, gave us his phone number, and told us where to beach the boat and wait for the sheriff's department to rescue us. But, we launched anyway and headed out. As we were motoring into the main reservoir at high speed and the boat started to bounce sideways, I started to hyperventilate. I hung on for dear life and thought to myself, "I don't think we are supposed to fly three feet in the air and bounce across the lake from wave to wave." When my kamikaze, 32 year old, little brat, son said, "it's not that bad, let's troll awhile." I think I actually shouted, "shut up!" but no one could hear me over the crashing waves. When the rolling swells started to splash over the side of the boat, I put on my life jacket and thought, "at least they will be able to find my floating body." Now, I'm not sure what it was that made Lieutenant Dan and Forrest Gump decide maybe we should get off the lake. It could have been the fact that I had left indented finger marks in the dashboard where I was hanging on. It could have been my continual mumbling, "please God, don't let me die today." It could have been concern over whether they would be able to pull the seat cushion out of my butt cheeks if they didn't leave soon. Whatever it was, I couldn't have been happier. Once we had the boat on the trailer, safe from the icy depths of that hideous reservoir, I knew I would have to rescind my previous claims and say instead, "we will never be too old for most adventures, and we have a deep respect for Mother Nature." So, tomorrow my partner in craziness will make his trek across the North Atlantic and then the Mediterrean Sea, all from the safe confines of a large airplane, and for the next 56 days I will try to rest and prepare until we do it all over again.