This weekend was a blast. I cut out of work early on Friday (Calm down. My boss knew so don't try to get me fired) and a few of us (Andrew, Holly, Bill, Kara and I) made the trip to Dripping Springs outside of Austin to Holly's parent's cabin.

On the way there, we stopped off in this little town to grab a cheeseburger and I was able to get a real Dr Pepper. Apparently, since Dr Pepper is made in Texas they make a small amount of local bottles that are made with real Imperial Sugar. It was really good and I am hoping to find some around here somewhere.

Once we got to the cabin we perused the grounds for a bit and this place was NICE. Not only was there the main cabin, but there was a really nice little two room cabin behind it about a 1/4 mile up the trail that they also owned. Bill called dibs on staying there so that left the two couples in the main house. Also there was her family's garage of vintage cars. They had at least ten-twelve vintage cars dating from the mid 70's all the way back to a 1928 Model "A" Ford. Not only that, but they were all in working order and were in amazing shape. I would kill to own Holly's Mercury Cougar from the 70's. That night consisted of home made lasagna and Top Gun.


The next morning we got up and watched cartoons for a while and then decided to head to the river. We happened to go on the exact day and time that Texas State University was having their graduation so it was a bit hectic there. After procuring our tubes, we set out on the river.

Kara and I decided to get a double tube so that way we could at least be together if we got separated from the rest of the guys. It was the most relaxing thing I have done in a while. I asked Holly if it was like that the entire time and she said, "Yeah mostly. There is one little fake rapid/chute thing but you don't have to go on it."

The reason I asked was because I am not a swimmer. I took swimming lessons when I was 11 years old and I passed them, but that was pretty much it as far as my swimming experience. I don't think I can swim.

We floated on down the river and had a great time and then we came around the last bend on the left side of the water and we could see the chute. A guy was standing right in front of it and the water was only like a foot deep so I thought, "Awesome. I can just hop out and walk our tube over to the other shore so we can be picked up." I WAS WRONG.

I hopped out and sunk like a brick. Luckily I grabbed on to the tube but there was no way I could get back in without flipping it and throwing Kara out. Either that guy on the rock was the Second Coming or he found the one rock that he could stand on but it was deep everywhere else. By this time our tube started to head towards the chute. I was between it and the tube and thought I could just grab on to the rock formation on the side of it and walk our tube to the side still. Well, when I got close to the chute, it sucked me in and I went for a ride.

I went down the chute and it spit me out in water that was too deep for me to find the bottom. I hit the surface in time to hit the second chute and I went down again. What I thought was just one chute actually turned out to be 4 chutes in a line. Luckily when I surfaced after the second time, there was a little girl in a kayak who helped me get over to a rock that was sticking out of the water. Yep, I got saved by a little 10 year old girl. I stood up on the rock and caught my breath and started searching for everyone else.

I saw Bill at the bottom of the third chute and Kara racing towards him. Bill reached out and grabbed her when she came by and helped her get over to the rocks as well. Holly was already on the shore. It turns out she only went down the first chute and then was able to get to the side. Andrew was all the way at the bottom of the fourth chute and he was trying to get our cooler back. It turned out that none of us made it down the chutes in our tubes. We all got thrown out and we were all bruised and bleeding in various places.

All I can say is thank God for the Kayak Team. They were having a class when we decided to be awesome and they helped us out. The little girl helped me and the rest helped us get our stuff back as it was floating by. After that, we got onto the cart thing to head back to the tube place. What sucks is as we were leaving, I turned around to look back at the chute, and there was girls as young as like 8 who were going down it with no problems at all. I hung my head in shame and sat down in the seat.

There was at least 50 people or so hanging out where we "rode the chute" as it has been henceforth named and all of them got a huge kick out of seeing us do our best EPIC FAIL.