This summer I spent most of my time on the river. I used my aunt Julie’s boats she has a flat bottom which is great for knee boarding. Knee boarding is kind of like a surf board sawed in half with a strap to hold you down to the board. At first a could not get up but then my cousin showed me a trick a used his trick and got up the first time after. Now I would consider myself good. I can even do some tricks like a 360, knee boarding backwards, and even stand up. She also has another boat, a speed boat. It is great for water skiing. Water skis look just like snow skis and are almost the same general concept. When you start on snow skis you start standing up, on water skis you start on your back with your knees to your chest. It is difficult to stand up but once you do it is the greatest adrenaline rush ever. I am not good at water skiing. I can get up but that’s about it. I tried to slalom ski but that was way too hard. First, I tried dropping one water ski after I got up but I crashed. So I decided to try starting out on just one ski but I face planted into the freezing Mississippi. Their speed boat is also great for tubing. In tubing there is little skill involved but there are some tricks. When the boater turns make sure you are facing the way you are turning and not facing the boat.
This also is good when you are about to crash so then you skip like a rock instead of cannon-balling into the water, which makes it hurt a lot less. When a boat goes fast it creates a wave it is actually not called a wave it’s called a wake. When tubing you always want to stay in the wake so you don’t crash as hard. They share a boat dock with their friend Larry Brummel, and on their boat dock they have a diving board. It is really, really cool. That is where I learned to dive. I learned to dive by placing a tube on the surface of the water and jumping head first through it. I started with one tube and worked up to three tubes. I can do lots of tricks like a front flip, a back flip, front dives, back dives, and even a misty flip. I tried to teach my brother Brandon how to do a front flip but he never caught on. He only mastered the back flip.
For the forth of July we were able to cook out at the dock and watch the fire works. We had the best seats, if you don’t mind sharing the space with a few bats swooping around. With the no-wake zone the dock makes a great place to enjoy the Mississippi and watch all types of boats, jet skiers and even kayakers. I even witnessed the DNR pulling over boaters not following the rules of the river. Some of the rules include one life jacket per person, a throw cushion, paddles, white light on the back, red and green light on the front.
The only thing that makes the dock a smelly place, beside the occasional dead, bloated fish floating down river, is the hatching of the fish flies. Also known as May flies. These slippery, smelly pests are horrendous for two weeks of every summer. But the fish flies will not stop me from enjoying my summer on the river.
-Anna F.