Tubing

This past weekend Jen organized a camping and tubing trip for her birthday. We couldn't find anyone to watch Kina for us, so we had to skip out on the camping part. But Kevin and I drove out to West Virginia on Saturday to go tubing with the group.

It's always difficult to wrangle a large group of people. And the organization we went with wasn't great at it either. We came close to getting split up across two different buses, but we ultimately had a few people standing in the aisle and holding their tubes so we could keep our group together. This probably wasn't the safest thing ever, but the bus only goes a couple of miles and those on back roads. We made it to the river without incident.

Jen had made sandwiches for everyone for the trip, and we quickly found a sort of secluded beach where we could gather and eat them. We spent some time wading and eating and hanging out, only leaving the beach when another group showed up wanting to use it. Then we lashed all our tubes together in a circle and floated down the river for the next few hours.

Ultimately we were on the river for over 3 hours, which is pretty impressive for a 2 mile journey. The river moves pretty slowly, though, and we did spend a lot of time on the beach. I managed to not get sunburned, and I think I've finally discovered the secret formula (which I've known for years but am getting better about implementing). If you put sunscreen on 30-45 minutes before you go outside (so in the car up) and then reapply right before going outside, it's far more effective. That also prevents it from all washing off in the water. Go me and my lack of sunburn!

We had tentative plans to meet up with friends in the city after the tubing. Having gone tubing last year, I knew it was very unlikely we'd actually make it. Sure enough we didn't even get home until after 8, at which point we were completely exhausted. Sitting in the sun and drinking beer is hard work, it turns out. Next year we'll be smart and not even make tentative plans for after tubing.