If memory serves me right this happened 3 years ago or so. It was one of those weekends where it felt like staying home was not an option. You know how life gets, right? You work a lot, and then you work some more, and then right when you are about to finish work, you work. So my girl and I just decide it's time to... not work, we can work later.

   What to do? What can we do? The plan we came up with, was... different. Let's say up until that trip I had never thought of doing it, and since that trip we have never done it again.

Blue Springs Florida State Park

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   What a beautiful place, just look at this picture ^^^ look at it!!! I was there, this is not photoshoped I promise, beautiful park and it had sea cows!!! What??? We just had to go.

   There were a couple of miscalculations from our part however, you see, you are supposed to visit these kinds of places when its hot, so that swimming is a possibility. Yeah, we did not take that into account, it wasn't crazy cold either, it was just not pleasant to get into the water, so we didn't. It was beautiful, and we walked around, asked questions and even got to see some of these cute manatees swim around.

But then....

   I think it was my idea, I'm not sure. I could ask, but even if it was not my idea, the events to follow were my fault. We decided to go up the river and rent a Kayak. That sounded like a good plan at the moment, I mean, we did just drive for 5 hours, and returning without making a few more memories was not an option. We got back in the car, drove a bit, and we got to rental place.

   I don't remember the exact way the conversation went down, but if I had to summarize, or simplify it. I was concerned that a man my size (I'm a big guy) would not be effective enough on a tiny Kayak. I mean, look at the darn thing.

   I've prepared an subliminal message that is sure to convey my reasoning.

   To an untrained @meno the Canoe, looks a little more robust, a little more... umpf on the floatiness because of the size concerns and such. But you see, that's just it, we are talking about an untrained @meno and he, I mean, me, that is I, have no clue about how these things are supposed to really work.

   I convinced my girl that a 250lbs man had no business in a little kayak, we simply had to rent the Canoe, its bigger, it's been used for centuries, it just checks out in my brain. So we rented it for two hours, it seemed reasonable to me, enough time to get a good workout, but at the same time not rush to get back to the starting point.

Everything was going well...

   I kept on thinking to myself as we are rowing away from the dock, how the waters were not as transparent as the ones on the first picture I shared. "Interesting thing, huh... It's like, they took away all the blue water from two miles ago and left all the weird dark algae floaties in here with us" but it was all good, we were having fun.

   I did notice a few gators in the water, nothing too crazy or unexpected for Florida, but for some reason I had not computed that they simply had to be in these waters too. It's not like negotiations were ever struck with the reptilians lords. I remember thinking how much it would suck, if someone fell into these gatory waters.

Ok, someone explain this to me

   As you can clearly see from this picture, when it comes to Canoes there is some sort of counterweight that needs to be applied, in order to make the darn thing not tip over when you turn. No one explained it to me, and I'm sure the guy who rented us the boat assumed that the man vocalizing his preference for the Canoe probably knew a thing or two about Canoes.

   It was not on the first turn we made, but maybe the second, that we lost control and fell into the water fully clothed, with a hard drive in my girl's purse and everything. Don't ask me why she had a hard drive in her purse, nobody knows how women pull that off, they put everything in there, but it had a lot of valuable stuff, a lot of my original music.

OMFG! The Gators!!!!

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   Just in case you are wondering, that's not me ^^^. I just want you to picture what was going on in my mind at the moment. I was not worried just for me, we were both in the water, and these little foookng gators were not too far away. That being said, we were pretty calm about it, or at least pretended real good. What to do??? It's not like abandoning the Canoe was a good option... or was it?

   We just decided to stay close to our flipped over Canoe, and push it to the shore. Easier said than done, the darn thing moved so slow I was considering abandoning my fiscal responsibilities. I kept on thinking "if anything touches my leg... Fook the Canoe! "

Team Building Exercise 99

   Thank god for Corporate outings, we got so freaking lucky! And what's best is that the guys who came to the rescue were Engineers and nerds, the right people for the right job, because this required thinking, and not brute force. A kayak and a Canoe approached as a third one, took off to get the Park Ranger, in case the Heroes could not get the 250lbs man out of the water, the possibility I'm sure was calculated with statistics and mathematical brains.

   As you can see from my Picassoish illustration ^^^ they were able to slowly flip the Canoe, dump the water out as if they were doing a reverse scoup, and slowly set it back down.

   They helped my girl get out of the water too, she was sitting on the Canoe just a couple of minutes later, and it was at that second, that truth hit me hard, and I started to panic a bit.

How do I get out of the water???

   It's not like they could lift me, or pull me, if they had tried, It might had flipped their Canoes. I had to pull myself up, as they held my Canoe..... how the hell do I pull myself up??? A quick reminder for those who are not following along that attentively, I weigh 250 lbs and this is basically one of those athletic moves, I'm not known for. I was holding the side of the boat thinking to myself "Well, the park ranger should be by soon enough, he has to have a solution for us".

   The Team Building Excercise 99 guys were cheering me on. They assured me they would hold the Canoe, so that I could jump inside, I just had to go for it.... I just had to do it, just once.... if a muscle tears, it was gonna be ok... it would heal... eventually... but becoming a gator's brunch... that could not be how I quit the show, no sir.

And then....

   Something touched my leg... What da foook was that????? I jumped into the Canoe as if I was a brand new ninja graduating from Ninja school with honors. Adrenaline is a hell of a thing. I don't think I can ever do that again, I was so proud of myself that day, I mean, how many 250lbs men can say they can jump like a dolphin out of the water? I only know of me, and only that one time.

   The ranger did show up btw, but it was too late, we were already sitting in our Canoe soaking wet with our broken hard drive and none working cell phones smiling. He asked us if we were OK, we played it cool.. "Yes, Yes... everything is fine, don't worry about us... great park you got here... " .

   Very carefully, very slowly, very lameish, we went back to the Dock, returned the Canoe and played it cool as if we just went for a swim, because that was part of the plan all along. And you know, I don't think anyone noticed... (yeah right).

   We have not been back... Would I go back? Maybe.... I think so, but I would go for the Kayak.... yes... the Kayak...

The Canoes, are too high tech for me, and the Gators prefer the Canoes, I'm sure.