"You broke the shit out of that slide!"

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Camping extravaganza '06 was an absolute success. It was crammed full of danger, adventure and romance. But, most of all there were sad choices for everyone.

Sad choices all around:

The group decided that it would be a fabulous idea to go drunk canoeing. Of course, it would only make sense to turn drunk canoeing into a race and with that in mind, four teams were formed.

Randy and Nathan - Two Aryan men with a drunken competitive streak.

Abby and Mikey P - Initially thought to be a contender, it seemed they were out of the race when Mike began puking up his liquid power hour lunch over the side of the canoe while still paddling.

Courtney and John - A physically strong team that meant business when they weren't talking nonsense.

Kyle and myself - Two people out for a leisurely stroll, not bothering with any of that racing nonsense. How were we supposed to drink our Hamm's if we were working so hard?

Because the rest of the group took their canoeing seriously and were busy racing and sabotaging, Kyle and I ended up a good five minutes behind. That is when we laid eyes on a beautiful site, a lone blue waterslide planted on a floating deck, just waiting for someone to slide down and splash gloriously into the lake.

Of course, we had to do it, there was no choice. After taking a sharp right and making sure we were out of eyesight of all other persons enjoying water sports, we pulled our canoe to the side of the deck and attempted to board. Kyle successfully got out of the canoe. I, on the other hand, momentarily forgot that the deck was floating, not stationary and lost my balance while trying to reach the slide.

I swam around and climbed on from the side while Kyle was properly lubricating the tall slide by filling up an empty can of Hamm's with lake water and pouring it down the slide. Based on the number of very large spiders and bits of rubbish on and around the slide, it was clear it had not been used in awhile. I took a stick and removed the large webs from between the rungs of the ladder when Kyle prompted me to climb it.

I began a slow ascent, rocking the deck with every shift of my weight. It was at this point that I realized parts of the slide had become disconnected from other essential parts. I said, "Kyle, this doesn't look very safe." Kyle, thinking I was just acting like a 40-year-old mom of three told me that it would be fine. Being drunk and susceptible to suggestion, I climbed one more rung, at which point the ENTIRE structure gave way (most notably at the important, weight baring joints that were not connected).

Kyle saw my life flash by his eyes as I fell off the ladder and the slide collapsed on top of me. I wasn't worried about being injured, I was only concerned with running away.

We climbed into our canoe as quickly as possible and began rowing our little hearts out at which point we realized that we had not disconnected our rope from the dock. We spent precious getaway time undoing ourselves and rowed back to shore with three inches of water in the bottom of our canoe and one hell of a story to tell.


*Although that is not a picture of the particular slide we broke (my camera and cigarettes became casualties of the mission, overtaken by the lake's fierce, watery depths), it is the exact model and color. It, however, is in much better shape and probably still standing.

For a time log of the entire weekend, visit A little more sense, a lot less tact, Nathan's fabulous blog.