Tubing down the Delaware

Yesterday was the Square Dance club's annual Tubing down the Delaware trip. I got up at an unJedly hour on a Sat in order to drive up to Point Pleasant for the 11:00am rendezvous. We had a group of 16 intrepid tubers (not quite enough for the 20 person group discount) and agreed to take the 3 hour tour. I slathered on sunscreen and grabbed a quick hotdog and away we went. We took the bus to the drop off point upriver and settled into our tubes. The sky was overcast and the water was a bit chill, so some of us jumped in right away and some others took their time getting in. Thus our group was spread out for a bit as the current carried us downstream. It was very very relaxing. When I'm tubing, I really can not do anything else, so it works as a terrific mental holiday for me. I saw all sorts of river wildlife: dragonflies mating, brine shrimp (stuck to my clothes after I passed over some shallow rocks), a flock of ducks on the water, several turkey vultures circling overhead, and some waterstriders. Surprisingly, I saw no fish, frogs, or turtles - I suspect that they knew enough to stay out of our way. I flipped over in my tube so that I could ride the rapids headfirst and that was a rush (by "rapids" I mean a little bit of turbulence caused by some rocks - nothing remotely scary). The sun finally came out toward the end of the trip, which was great for drying off. As our weary tubers collected on the shore, we changed, retrieved our keys, and sought food and water. Afterwards a number of us gathered at a lovely community center for our evening square dance. It was hot and humid by this time, so dancing enthusiasm was a bit muted, but I did all right. I didn't particularly care for this caller since he had unwieldly choreography, but he had a nice voice and it was a fun time. It was very nice to see many of the dancers, whom I haven't seen since classes ended in May. After a tired drive home, I took a shower to wash off the combinatioon of river water and sweat, and slept better than I had all week.

Home Improvement

I have a bargain with myself. I promised myself that now that I was a homeowner, I would devote an hour a week to actually doing home improvement. Not maintenance like vacuuming, washing dishes, or doing laundry, but actual unpacking and fixing up the place. Today, I was filled with slugitude and not interested in doing much. I ran the vacuum and did some dishes, including cleaning out the coffeepot, inbetween reading and watching tv. Then I was seized with inspiration and pulled out the paint and a brush and began repainting the hallway, which has a trim color that I don't much like. I spent an hour redoing the chair rail while listening to the music of Kate Bush. This was way cool! I had been hung up on my the bathroom project, because I haven't been able to bring myself to sand the walls down so that I can repaint it after having removed the hideous walllpaper. Maybe this will motivate me for next week...