Flotillas and Beer

Here’s a life tip: if you ever have the chance to go whitewater tubing with a group of fun people on a beautiful Sunday afternoon, DO IT. Especially if a floating cooler full of beer (or two) is involved. I know this because on one toasty weekend in July, a gaggle of us escaped the steamy swamp that is Washington, D.C., and headed to Harpers Ferry, WV for a lovely, lazy afternoon drifting down the Potomac.

The day started at about 9am, when we pulled away from Ballston and pointed the car toward West Virginia. After a coffee pit stop, we eventually made it to our tubing destination, where we got our super cool tubing armbands, rented a buoyant cooler, slathered on the sunscreen, and were finally ready to go!

BUT first, they made us watch a safety video. This was billed as a whitewater tubing trip, after all. The video taught us how to navigate the rapids, how to prevent ourselves from getting sucked under, and how to generally avoid getting impaled on the rocks. They also warned us of the dangers of drinking and tubing – 10 minutes after they rented us a cooler that was clearly going to hold many cans of beer! 🙂

Finally, they doled out the life vests, packed us onto a blue school bus (which means no A/C, and YES, it was HOT), and we trundled down to the river, where we found out all the talk of the dangers of whitewater rapids was slightly overstated. The water was pretty still. And by that, I mean completely still. Barely a ripple. Which meant our arms got quite the workout as we propelled ourselves down the river until we encountered some movement.

We spent the next few hours blissfully making our way down the river – a handful of us formed a “flotilla” by grabbing onto each other’s tubes, legs, and ankles, so as to better socialize throughout the afternoon. The beer cooler was rarely far away. We encountered a few minor “rapids”, but fortunately there was no getting sucked under or getting impaled. After we finally made it to the exit point of the river and squeezed into the air conditioning-less blue bus for the short ride back, they fed us hot dogs, hamburgers, potato salad, and lemonade. One of our super cool armbands apparently entitled us to a couple of beers, but most of us passed (the floating coolers served their purpose!)

After stuffing ourselves on all that yummy Americana fare, we crammed ourselves back into various cars for an uneventful ride home. So all in all, a successful trip and a great way to spend a summer afternoon!