All my life I always wanted to do the things Huck did. I wanted to catch fireflies on a balmy night. I wanted to chase frogs on the riverbank. I wanted to ride a raft to places where nobody knew where I was. (I've never wanted to swing a dead cat over my head to ward off bad luck, though.) The older I get, my private little dreams have transmographied into quiet wishes for my two girls. I've always hoped that they could have childhood experiences in nature- where they were brave and curious and happy in a place more wild than tame, to a degree. But as it turns out, I'm not a nature guy. I'm not a most valued customer at REI. I can't even hike that well. And Tiffany is worse than I am. She gets nervous when the kids merely play on grass because she's just not used to grass being anywhere, really. So I've been pretty resolved that my quiet wishes would remaining nothing more than that...
This morning I woke up after a stupendous night with the treehouse windows wide open and every entomology of bug thwapping on our pillowcases. I was truly rested. I find I always sleep better when my surroundings are as close to "outside" as it can get. I love the feeling of half-waking in the early am, right as the temperature changes and begins to cool down, and I sleepily make sure the blanket is wrapped around me a little bit more for that extra warmth. Last night was one of those nights. Perfect. And I'm hoping that tonight will be as well. (But first I have to blog...even though my eyes can barely stay open and everyone else in the treehouse is already asleep.)
So wake up we did, and we grabbed a hearty breakfast provided by the treesort. I went into the kitchen to explore first. And I was pleased to see that there were two spectacular things going on in the kitchen.
1) The chef was making scones that actually had smoked bacon in them!
2) The chef was a cross-dresser.
Now, I don't know about you, but I love these little beautiful twists that life gives us. Some people run from them, but I welcome them. I hope for them. Otherwise, everything can get pretty hum-drum pretty fast. Judging from what little interaction I had from some of the other treesort patrons, I was ready for some awkward looks and double takes- BUT THERE WERE NONE! Now, either everyone was effectively playing it cool as ice or nobody noticed or nobody cared. I hope it was the last one...but I'm too skeptical to truly believe that.
Anyhoo, breakfast was out of control good. I hate scones, but these scones were otherworldly. There were two different types of fresh baked quiche and well as piping hot french toast and fluffy scrambled eggs. I am looking forward to tomorrow already.
After the Dodge Four Breakfasted we let the girls explore the grounds a little more. Not far from the main area, across a small pasture, sat a kiddie zipline and something that is simply referred to a "Tarzan Swing." The girls ziplined about a million times and then scrambled to the giant rope hung between two trees. We even got Tiffany to take a ride once. Okay twice.
But soon enough it was time to hit the river! We were going river rafting today. Do you know that Tiffany loves rafting? This is an odd contradiction to the fact that she easily gets motion sick. But she loves to hit the water on that inflatable...
As luck would have it, the Dodge Four were the only passengers for this raft tour! So we had the raft and the guide all to ourselves. Our guide's name was Rael. Just imagine Bradley Cooper. Same speaking style, look, demeanor, and fucking unavoidable tanned swimmer's body and all that Adonis-like nonsense. At first I didn't even think of all this...but once we put the raft in the water, Rael casually took off his shirt and the angels wept. Jesus Christ. Later as we conversed, I learned that Rael was once a professional soccer player, then model. But he felt he wanted to give back so he got his masters and started teaching high school social studies. During summer break he returns to the rivers he travelled on with his father as a boy, but now as a guide, to share his love for nature with everyone else. Jesus, Rael, really?
But Rael was awesome. Cool. Collected. Friendly but he never tried to yuk our heads off. Most importantly, he never spoke to the girls as if they were retarded..which many touristy type people do with kids. Nope, Rael spoke to them like they were just two of four equal people on the raft.
Our rafting trip on the Klamath River lasted all day, and in between class 2 to 3 chop we lazed on down stream. When the water was calm we would all hop out of the boat and just bob along. The fantastic part of it all was that we had the entire river to ourselves. As we floated along on our backs, sometimes as much as fifty feet separating each of us, with the majestic tree lined cliffs on either side of us, it almost felt intimate, because it was only us. Our voices echoed and tripped off into silence, and all that was left each time was the sound of the river.
Many times, as we floated along, the calm water in the distance would start sounding anxious, and Rael would coolly say, "Alright, juuust a little bit ahead is a rapid, so you're gonna wanna get back into the raft now." But every time, our response to this was not equally cool. We'd start panic-swimming back to the raft as if Niagra Falls were ahead. Rael would help heft us back into the raft, (Which was reminiscent every time of a Green Peace sea lion rescue.) We'd take our positions and ride churners that go by the names of "the rattlesnake" or "the devil's toenail." Sometimes Charlie and Chase would sit on the nose of the raft and ride the rapids like a bucking bronco. Then the water would get calm again and cicadas would click at us on one side of the river and the grasshoppers would beat their wings at us on the other side and the dragonflies would return and alight on our fingers and toes as if welcoming us to a really friendly club that we always heard had existed, but never took the time to look for.
And after a long day of gliding down the river, watching the bald eagles and ospreys and blue herons flying overhead, our end point arrived. The kids would have rafted to the ocean if we let them. We waited on the shore as Rael put the raft up on the trailer, and the girls noticed hundreds of fingernail sized frogs, jumping in the sand and swimming in the water. I watched them follow these frogs, laughing and pointing and chasing. And I felt good.
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