Sure seemed like fun at the time

"Irrelevant Personal Experiences: this post is worth skipping" Department

A 4th of July fireworks display was scheduled near the Hartwell Dam on Saturday night, which inspired me to give mental birth to the spectacularly stupid idea of driving Calypso over to Horseshoe Island and anchoring out for the night, to avoid the inevitable dockside craziness sure to accompany the party fleet's return to the marina (surely a few would still be sober enough to find it).

Trouble was, I had no idea what time the fireworks actually started or ended.

Once I'd left the marina and was merrily underway, what I cruised into instead was the Drunkenly Blind Armada (a moniker I made up myself to include every houseboat, Go-Fast boat, over-powered bass boat and mid-life crisis cruiser aimed at high speed in my direction, intent upon running me aground or otherwise scaring me silly with their ineptness) on their way back from the show.

Yikes.

I tried counting all the red and green lights whizzing around me but gave up soon as I started. Yes there were that many ... at least 50 boats heading in 360 different directions all at the same time, at speeds varying from I think my engine's broke all the way to I'm outta beer and the nearest store closes at 11.

Yea it was stressful.

At one point I literally had to drive into four feet of water on the inside of an orange Danger: Shallow Water buoy to avoid a possible collision with a sport cruiser whose driver seemed determined to blind me with his search light so I couldn't ID his hull number and lodge a complaint.

Or maybe he thought I was one of the UFOs you hear about people spotting on the lake after dark. After the beer's all gone.

In the background the VHF radio slowly filled with a breathless exchange between a man and a woman that became so luridly salty (that's a nautical term) and explicit in detail [I woulda switched off the radio, except that by law boaters are required to monitor Channel 16 while underway] that DNR actually came on the air and made firm, "All stations, be advised this channel is reserved for emergencies."

So that ended that: DNR's not known for fooling around or giggling a whole lot at sexual innuendos on busy 4 th of July boating weekends.

The inlet at Horseshoe was empty when I arrived so I weighed anchor, tuned in to Sss's grumblings on the FM for a few minutes before nodding off, and enjoyed three hours of fitful, miserable near-sleep in the sauna of Calypso's 90+ degree heat (gotta see about getting that generator fixed one day) before driving back the next morning in time (barely) for the 11:15.

Anyway the point is, now that the stress of being surrounded and menaced by simpletons steering small ships is behind me, seeing the green, red and white lights whizzing past was pretty cool ... a lot like riding a golf cart through a tunnel filled with technicolor fireflies might be like.

But neither Saturday night nor even a Star Wars jump to hyperspace could match the time my old friend Don & I were on motorcycles roaring down from the mountains, east-bound on I-70 heading into Denver at night ... just in time to catch a late-season snowfall.

Piloting a motorcycle through falling snow at interstate speeds at night sure sounds like utterly reckless nuttiness right now ... but it sure looked cool at the time.