Campin

On the 7th, I took my girls to meet their tour bus to go on a trip with their upward bound program...they were goin to NY city. Well that night I get a call from a couple that I be good friends with and they invite me to go campin with them and their kids to Cherokee Lake. Welp, I thought why not, cuz it will make the time pass faster while I be missin my girls. So Wednesday mornin I leave bright and early to meet up with them and head toward the lake.
We get there, pick a camp site and set up our camp ground area. Everyone enjoyed themselves that first day swimming either in the pool or lake and fishin. That night we laughed so much my side hurt.
The next day they decided to rent a pontoon boat. I just love being out on the water and was really excited. Then I think we all were cuz we didn't even bother to secure out camp before we left. Cherokee Lake is a very long long lake with lots of turns. We kept sayin, sure hope we can find our way back as we kept goin further and further away. We fished some along the way and then found a nice little cove and stayed there for awhile swimmin.
So I find me a life jacket that will fit and put it on and jump into the water with the kids. They all can swim like fish and even though I can swim somewhat, tread water, and float, I'm still not confident enough to get in deep water and find out just how well I can or can't swim. Seein how you can only drown once and this day didn't seem like a good day to drown. So after I jump in, I find out that my life jacket is completely torn on the bottom and the little white Styrofoam inside is doin it's best to float out of the jacket. So with one hand tryin to hold the Styrofoam in and doin a side swim with the other hand, I finally make it back to the pontoon boat. This time I make sure that the life jacket is a good one and again jump back in the lake. Well I have never swam in a life jacket before. And I find it is takin two steps forward and five steps back. And then finally when I am almost at the boat, they realize they are gettin too close to the shore and move the boat back out toward the middle of the cove. I was thinkin no no....and begin my journey again toward the boat. I did finally make it, climbed up, and had had enough of the swimming. Not long after that we notice the sky gettin cloudy, so we load back up and start headin back to our dock. I decide to be funny, and do my best reenactment of the Titanic, get my laughs and then sit down at the front of the boat. Well the front of the boat had a set of seats on each side and then there was a gate and a little area on the front where you could jump off the boat to swim. Which was just what we had been doin earlier. And no sooner did I sit from just doin my best performance of the Titanic, the front of the boat suddenly became submerged in the water. The water came gushin in and the gate, which I guess no one had locked back, came crashin into my leg. I tried to hold back the water with the gate...and by the way the gate hittin my leg...it hurt! Then the oldest of their sons, he runs back to the back seats under the canopy, next to his mom. I'm thinkin, I will never reenact the Titanic again!
Have you ever wondered....if a pontoon boat could be sunk? Well, I'm thinkin it can!
So our greenhorn captain of the ship, figures out it had something to do with how he trimmed the motor (whatever that means)...and corrects whatever it was he did...and luckily the water starts runnin back out of the boat where it belonged...in the lake, not in our boat!
So now the boat is like really wet and our fearless captain says, how am I goin to explain all this water in the boat.
Welp, I guess he must be livin his life right, cuz god made a way to explain it....
It came one hellacious storm, literally!
At first me and the other two kids were enjoyin bein rained on. Then it got worse. We all huddled under the canopy now, but the rain was so hard it just blew in. And the rain hurt as it fell on us. Just as someone moaned, awwww it hurts, it hurts....I noticed on one of the towels we were using to try and stay dry, was a small ice ball. I was like no wonder it hurts.....it's hail.
I have to say, that was the worst storm I had ever been in. The lightening seemed to light the whole sky and the thunder was deafenin. You couldn't even hold your eyes open for the rain beatin on your eye sockets. But I don't know how but our captain after what seemed like hours, got us back to the dock, all drenched but safe.
It was still stormin when we got there and our camp site was also drenched. There was a nice lady from another site there tryin to zip our tents up. The people at this other camp site. Well they were right on the point and next to the lake, and a lot of there stuff was now at the bottom of the lake...yes that was how bad it was. We were lucky, I had one of them shamie wammy rags in my car and we used that to soak up all the water in our tents. But after a little sun and dryin we were back in business.
Hickchic thinks....that one...I will never reenact the Titanic; two that god always makes a way even to explain water on a boat; and three without all the excitement, we wouldn't have had half as good a story to tell!