Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Water Ski - Me?

Yes, I managed to (briefly) get up on skis this past weekend at Smith Mountain Lake! After many, many tries on Saturday and Sunday I finally stood up for several long seconds - the longest time I have been up on skis. It was awesome, it was thrilling, it was cool. I used Mike's "bungee cord method" (I wrap a bungee cord around my knees to keep me from doing a spread eagle face plant in the water) and it finally worked. I lost three bungee cords in the process, but managed to keep the last one the longest. I swallowed a lot of lake water and got plenty up my nose (now, there's a visual!) but I DID IT!! I talked to myself a lot out there saying stuff like, "I kicked cancer's butt and this is not as tough, so just do it already!" It didn't work too often, but when I least expected it, I was standing up on the water. Once I was up, I had a whole new set of problems to think about like figuring out how to balance myself. Alas, it didn't last long and I couldn't figure out how to do it again but I'm really close to having a longer run. We're going to another lake in PA this weekend with other friends and I'm going to try again and again until I am successful because it was FUN.

Getting older seems to be working for me. I took up rock climbing a couple of years ago and this year, I'm working on water skiing. Life is good.

1 comment:

FirePhrase said...

Good for you! It's the water up the nose thing that wigs me out the most about water skiing. Whip me, beat me, make me write bad checks, but don't make me snort lake water. I think it's bad childhood swim lesson flashbacks. You make it sound almost fun enough to give a try, though.

jb