This week Dan and I took a pontoon ride "down the lazy Suwannee River" - even though we have lived here on the river for almost seven months I have to admit I had not been "on the river" yet. Dan had gone on the ill fated canoe trip after which he came home and declared that he 'needed something with an engine" (BTW - the canoe has not left the yard since) but I had not had the opportunity to do so until this past week.
Our community owns a nice pontoon boat and, in the summer, it is available for excursions on the river (driven by a "pilot" from here in the village). I mean, it's not like you can just go down and jump on the darn thing and take off on your own, but you can go on these little "excursions" with other members of the community.
Our allotted time was on Wednesday at 1:00 in the afternoon. There were eight other people aboard (including the "captain" and "first mate" - this meant the person driving the boat and the person who jumps out on the dock with the rope to tie the boat up after the trip). The day was lovely - blue sky with a few clouds and the temperature was only a mere 92 degrees - spring time weather in Florida.
All was going well, but I knew it couldn't last, I mean I was on board. We went up the river for about 45 minutes - then turned around to head back to the dock. However, some on the boat decided we needed to take an extra excursion and go down to the bridge that crosses the river ab
out a mile from the dock and proceeded to convince the captain to go on this little extra trip (the captains only comment was "what if we run out of gas?" and everyone decides that Dan can swim for help- yeah right!). This little side trip went well, so on our way back to the dock Dan decides we (meaning he and I) need to trade places with some of the other people aboard - you see we had been sitting in the front so I could take pictures and Dan thought we should give others the opportunity to sit in the front. (The good thing about his idea was we would now be under the bikini top and in the shade instead of out in the hot sun. ) So I agree - I mean I can always stand up to take any picture I need to, and I REALLY wanted to be in the shade at this point. Well, as the picture shows, this was not such a good idea after all. This is my sweet husband retreiving the hat of one of the passengers. Seems that she did not think she needed to tie it on and the hat blew overboard (and we couldn't just let it go - polluting the river!). Isn't Dan just the nicest little thing????Actually the trip was rather nice and I would like to do it again sometime, maybe when the weather gets a little cooler - like November or December.
Until next time America!
