Weekend at the Lake Recap

Friday after work, I ducked out of the office and headed for the lake. My brother and Brandon (a.k.a. WB) had left town about 3:15. I didn’t hit the bridge until about 5. Mom and Dad hit the bridge about 6:30. I got to the lake just before sunset which made for some beautiful scenery on the way over.

I got there and heard a commotion down at the beach. I walked out and saw my brother and WB floating in the water with a cooler full of cold beer and the ghetto blaster turned up. I quickly changed into my swimsuit and raced down with a float and a margarita. We floated, shot the proverbial bullsh*t, and drank beer. WB couldn’t stay on his float. It wasn’t a drinking thing. It was more of a lack of coordination thing. Apparently Texas boys have such huge egos that they are a little too top heavy and fall over a lot. I don’t know.
I’d been at the beach for about an hour when the ‘rents pulled up. We hopped out of the water and unloaded the trucks. We kept drinking and hung out for a while. Dad decided he wanted to read his book. WB, the brother, and I wanted to drink out on the deck. We went out there and I lit up a cigar. I think it was a Carlos Y Torano from a little town called Habana. I only had a few cigars left so we only lit one. I wanted to save the others for after HM got there. We drank for a while and finally went to bed.
The next morning there was a terrible noise at my door. I slowly realized that I was a little hungover, and it was just someone knocking. HM was at the lake house before 9AM. He had left Memphis about 6ish. He said that he had stopped at a gas station in Fair Oaks, AR, on the way to the lake. He asked the lady at the counter “what’s the earliest you can buy beer around here?” She said “I guess now is fine.” He picked up an Arkansas six-pack of Coors Light (aka a 30-pack of beer).
We eventually got the brother up and went to the water. Mom and Dad took the pontoon boat and the rest of us took the ski boat. We went into a cove and dropped the anchors. We floated for a while. HM got some great pics of that, BUT I forgot to get them for my computer. So I’ll post them after I get them. Here are a few pics from my camera: Here we have HM & WB saying "wussup!" Yeah, how white are we? Here we have WB & HM on tubes. This is before we throw them off.

Here we have WB & HM after being thrown from the tubes. Yeah boy!

After a few hours we skied a few folks. Then the pontoon wouldn’t work. I love drama. We had to drag it back to the dock. After that we took the ski boat back out, just the guys. We tubed for a while. HM asked us how he had lived for so many years without ever tubing. He said it was a blast.
We came back to the house after a while. I was in charge of grilling the bratwurst and the hamburgers. They weren’t ready yet so I took a quick shower. I raced upstairs and the brats were ready. I grilled them and hung out with HM and WB. We told stories and tried to recover from the day. I took the brats off the grill and put the hamburgers on. Everyone agreed I did a better job with the bratwursts than the hamburgers. I think I over cooked the burgers.
Sunday just the guys decided to go out on the ski boat and leave Mom, Dad, and the dog at the house. They wanted to leave earlier than we did so they were going to leave while we were out. We did a little tubing and then decided to drop anchor and float. Well it was at that time that we busted out the cigars. Everyone got one. We all hung out on the boat listening to music, smoking cigars, and drinking. Here are a few pics of us on the boat:

This is HM, the brother, and yours truly. Yeah, I busted out the ol' cowboy hat. Here's the brother with WB. WB has a nice margarita. Here's yours truly, HM, and WB. I think it goes pale, less pale, and Jamaican.

After we finished our cigars, we all hopped in the water and hung out. After a while we hopped back in the boat and did some more tubing. HM drove the boat while WB and my brother tubed. I laughed and kicked back. It was nice to not have to drive. After a while we swapped and the brother drove while HM and I got on the tubes. We have a tandem rope so we can have two tubes at once. It’s pretty fun.
I honestly think my brother was trying to kill me while we were going. I was doing a great job of hanging on despite all the waves he drove us through, but finally he found one that was the worst thing I’ve ever seen. I was on the port side tube behind the boat. My brother was turning us to the right (starboard) which meant that those of us on the tubes were being swung as far to the port side as possible. All of a sudden there were these three HUGE waves in front of me. I mean three feet tall. I know that may not sound like much to those of you who have been to the ocean, but this is a lake and these were waves we’d just made ourselves. Ok, most waves you’ll see in a lake are just under a foot tall at most. These were monsters. The tube hits the first one and it bounces me a little. I come down into the swell and go up catching a little air. I come back down hard into the swell of the third wave. It hurt, but not that bad. Then I go up to the top of the third wave getting a little more air than I did off the second wave. I come down real hard from the third wave and realize I’m going up a fourth wave. A FOURTH WAVE!!! WHAT FOURTH WAVE?!? I never saw it coming. I went and over the top of the fourth wave while praying. WB, HM, and the brother all say that I was 3 feet above the tube which was a foot above the water. Here’s their description of what happened after I went up on the fourth wave:
I went up and my hands lost their grip on the tube’s handles. Then almost in slow motion, you could see my hands reaching for the tube handles as they were pulled out of reach by the boat. I fall four feet to the water while twisting sideways in the air.
Then I hit the water. And let me tell you it hurt. When I came down after the third wave, I had slammed my nose into the tube. When I came down after the fourth wave and hit straight water, I hit my side and somehow my shoulder. It almost knocked the wind out of me. I have made some bad spills skiing and tubing before, but this one really hurt. They all thought I was in trouble. I just needed to catch my breath. We tubed a little more and then called it a day. When we got back to the dock, WB wanted to catch some of the carp that were swimming around where we fill up with gas. He put on a glove for better grip. Here are a few pics of him trying to get a fish:

He never got one. I guess he needed two hands or something. After we went home and packed up, everyone headed back to Memphis. That was pretty uneventful. I saw more cops on the way back than I did on 4th of July. I caught a glimpse of this car on the way to the I-40 bridge coming into Memphis. It was some mom and her daughter. Apparently they either found a time warp to bring the from the 1980s to today or the mom has repetitive amnesia like in 40 First Dates.The window says "HALL + OATES" with "ROCK + SOUL" below it. Is it just me or is that VERY random?
I had a great time. It was very relaxing. I can't wait to head back.

Songs on the Playlist:
Lynyrd Skynyrd – Tuesday’s Gone
George Thorogood and the Destroyers – One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer
The Beatles – For You Blue
INXS – Mystify
The Rolling Stones – Dear Doctor
Jerry Reed – East Bound N’ Down
Clint Black with Steve Wariner – Been There
Gary Numan – Cars
The Doors – Light My Fire
The Offspring – Why Don’t You Get A Job
Red Hot Chili Peppers – Under the Bridge
The Grateful Dead – Dire Wolf
The Allman Brothers Band – You Don’t Love Me
The North Mississippi Allstars – Drinking Muddy Waters