So, we just got back from a week in Lake of the Ozarks, Missouri (LOOMO, as I like to call it) with Laura's family. I had a hard time being cut of from the wired world at first, but it turned out to be a blessing in the long run. I had no idea how freaked out I should be. Mostly, there was sun and water and beer and we enjoyed them in, roughly, that order.
On one particular day, we rented a waverunner. I'd never been on a waverunner before, but they are a lot of fun. We initially tried to rent one from Der Vater's Edge, a "German" marina just down the way from our "resort," but they claimed that nobody on that end of the lake rented them anymore.
I put resort in quotes because L's family told me that the place where we were staying wasn't rustic. I'm not a big fan of rustic. Once we got there, I pointed out that a place where a 2x4 roughly hewn into a duck shape served as decoration was rustic. That a place where an embroidery frame in the bathroom warned you that the septic system only handled single-ply toilet paper was rustic. That a place where the control for the air conditioning in your cabin was in the next cabin was rustic. It was indeed rustic, but it turned out to be more fun than I expected.
Laura's youngest brother and I drove around the lake on a road that made me happy I'd had so much practice on driving video games. It was very wind-y and changed altitudes with "the frequency of a cheap ham radio," as Dan Aykroyd would say. We get to Bull Run Bluff campgrounds and find out from the woman running the office that her son runs the marina and we need to go down the hill even further. On the way out, Jon had a whole conversation with a gigantic male turkey. I think they may be dating now.
We get to the bottom of the hill and fill out the necessary paperwork and the son points out all the dings in the finish of the jet-ski. He's filled in the ones they've already found with black marker and warns us that a particular 2x2 inch patch of dings was a few hundred dollars in penalty charges. I figure we're safe, because we can just buy a sharpie and fill in any dings we make in the hull.
So, I leave my car at the marina and hop on the back of the waverunner so we can ride it back to our "resort." I mentioned I'd never been on a personal water craft before, so I have my fingers locked in a rictus death grip on the seat of the one Jon is driving. I swear he hit every pot-hole on that lake on the way back. My fingers still hurt today...
We all took turns riding the waverunner and had a blast. Laura's oldest brother was riding it when we realized we were missing one of the life vests the marina gave us with the rental. Turns out, he had had it around his leg and it fell off while he was riding. If a 2x2 patch of dings was a few hundred dollars, I was dreading the charge for a missing vest.
So, Joe took a spin around the lake first looking for the vest. Next, Laura and I took a ride. I let Laura drive because her sister said Laura drove the waverunner like a grandma and screamed in her ear while she was a passenger. Laura apparently released her inner extreme athlete during our ride, much to the chagrin of my testicles which met the back seat of the waverunner several times in spectacular fashion. My nuts still hurt...
So, we had resigned ourselves to paying for the vest and Jon was taking the waverunner for one last spin before we turned it in. He got just out of shouting distance when he stopped dead in the water. I know he was out of shouting distance because we were shouting many "helpful comments" to him and he didn't seem to hear. Eventually, another waverunner started to circle him in order to offer help. Soon, a second waverunner showed up and was circling him as well.
I forgot to pack my swim trunks which were really cool Paul Franks with a print made up of drawings of RVs when we left. Our first day down there, we were at the Wal-Mart and Laura bought me a pair of trunks so orange I could wear them deer hunting. This turned out to be a blessing because when one of the good samaritan wavrunners asked if they could tow Jon back, he said, "Sure. Just go over by the guy with the orange trunks."
After many waverunner doctors offered their diagnosis of the problem, the floating party that was our cabin neighbors offered to tow the whole shebang back to Bull Run Bluff. These guys really knew how to run a rescue operation. After we tied up the waverunner, one of their party brought down a tray of cheese and crackers and I soon had a venison sausage and a Bud Light aluminum bottle (to keep it cold) as we moved off across the lake. I thanked them for their help and they said it was no trouble at all as long as we didn't throw them off their tight beer-drinking schedule. Judging by the amount of beer on the boat, I wasn't worried.
They dropped us off at the marina and after checking for dings and getting the waverunner started again, we were square and took off. On our way out, we realized that the marina was actually on roughly the same street as our "resort." We took that road and it was a straight shot without all the wind-y-ness and cheap ham radio altitude changes. Oh, well...