Big Tater Takes on the Pemi

I should start by reminding you that my daughter’s nickname for me is Big Tater. I’m still not sure why, but the name stuck. I now reciprocate this term of endearment by calling her Tater Tot, even though she’s 22 years old. The other day Megan decided it would be refreshing and fun to take a tubing ride down our local Pemigewasset River, or the Pemi. She also decided that it would be fun to take her mother who doesn’t have any hands or feet. What better way to cool off than to stick a legless woman in a tube and push her down a river. It made sense to me… not.

We had tried floating in the lake before, however In that case I took my legs off and she pulled me around in an inner tube. It was very enjoyable but very difficult to get the legs back on afterwards. I need to be higher than my legs so I can step into them. It’s not so easy when I’m on the ground where there’s no leverage. Megan had to ask for help from the only other lady on the beach, who was there with her child, and together they lifted me up so I could step into the legs. I’m no skinny minny, not by a long shot. Nothing worse than taking your child to the lake only to find a daughter taking off her mother’s legs and pushing her out to sea. I’ve never seen a child look so confused.

So moving onto the Pemi trip. Having learned from our last adventure, we decided that this time we would keep the legs on. I had an older set that did not have batteries so they were fairly water resistant. It turned out to be a good decision. The river was low and we had to navigate through roughly 200 yards of low river and rocks. While Megan pulled me along I found myself kicking off from the rocks in an attempt to help. Fourty-five minutes later we finally made it to an area where we were able to float. By this time Megan’s float had lost all it’s air so she had to re-inflate it by mouth standing in the river. Finally we were ready to continue our journey. We roped together our tubes so she wouldn’t lose me. The current was slow that day so she did a lot of kicking and swimming. Thankfully, we didn’t see any snakes (my biggest fear). We floated, we got stuck, we laughed and had a great time together, which I think was the best part. Three hours and probably 3 miles later we reached the shore. I did a lot of praying that day and despite all the struggles and difficulties faced, we made it through unscathed. God is so good.

It was a great experience and I recommend a good tubing trip down your local river as long as you’ve got a nice current to keep you moving, and great company.  What’s your most recent adventure?   Comment below.