Inner Tubing...by Juli

Growing up in Northern California offers you a lot of variety when it come to outdoor recreation. From our home town we can be at the ocean or the redwoods in 45 minutes, to the lake in about an hour and to the snow in 3 hours. Not to mention the rolling hills and the rivers to explore in between. Growing up our family always ventured to the beach, you could convince Dad to go to the beach pretty much anytime you knew he was available. The beach in the summer time. I am sure you are thinking of long stretches of soft sand and gentle waves to frolic in. Oh yes, you California girls must just be sun kissed golden all summer from laying in the hot sun drinking your coca cola. Well, here comes the reality check. When you come to visit northern California you will soon realize that the beaches are not like Southern Cali's. Nope, they are windy rocky beaches with pebbled stretches of giant rip tides that pull you out to the great white sharks. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE the beach, its just really hard to catch it on a good day during the summer. 

So for the very first time the hubster and I joined a couple of friends and went tubing down the Russian River in Healdsburg, just a few minutes from my house. The plan was to meet, jump in the river and be home in time for dinner, a good 2-3 hours. Well 2-3 hours turned into 5 and we were home in time for Dateline with Stone Philips. All in all it started out really fun. There were some swift parts some lazy parts and even a part when I ran into a tree {go figure}. Unfortunately we kept going to the point were we hit stagnate water. No flow.  The lazy river soon became kick and flail your arms to move 2 inches while I starve to death.

The hubster and I began the river float asking, "Why haven't our parents ever taken us tubing?!? I mean this is so much warmer and relaxing than the beach." At the end I was throwing a hissy fit from the slimy stringy goop snuggling in between my toes and the fact that my stomach was eating itself. That's when I said "Now I know why our parents didn't take us tubing"

Happy Summer.