Connecter dots

Sometimes a day needs to be logged as it were. 

Woke up by the faintest light of the sun. Self assigned my morning job, needed to put 100 or so miles on the new motorcycle. Made this task as important as any work task; it was something I needed to do. I injured my shoulder last weekend - thankfully, not as bad as I initially feared - so I missed a few days of motorcycling so was behind on my miles. Rolled out of the alley at 6:08 and turned around at the cell tower east of 83 a few miles south of 105 right as I had made 500 miles, got McDonalds at Palmer Lake Exit, and sped back to Denver for the oil change. 

As I edited photos at the TAG restaurant that had the AC out, with my Negra Modelo and the overwhelming stench of awful food trash, I overheard a very happy fit young bearded man, espous the gospel. Mostly, his value was TIME and EXPERIENCES; his talk was not for my ears, but he excitedly described recent times where the experience he had, "could not be bought," and how "time is what we all have" and I agreed physically I did not engage, I maybe nodded tro one of his audience as I left. 

The bike was fixed so I came home and watched a talk show from Thursday night, where we laughed with a Mexican guest host about how we should look for what we have in common, instead of what is different about us. 

I changed to shorts and sandals and headed to the lake, since my kids' friend's dad has a lake boat and we all had an invite. My two boys and the father-son pair had made it into the water an hour before I arrived. I made a meeting time and made it, but they missed the time because they high-centered the boat on a sand bar, but I was able to get the gas station / liquor store staff to scramble help. Soon I was getting picked up at the pump like we planned. 

The water was great if a bit full of lake-seaweed. The kids enjoyed the floating mat and I tried to keep my injured shoulder stationary. But, I had planned to wake-board and when it came my turn, I had a great spin around the lake. Both kids were surprised but I was not surprised, that I remembered how to do it after not ever wake-boarding in their lifetimes. After my wake-boarding lap, we tried to get the tube attached, but unfortunately the rope got caught in the boat's rotor. I threw anchor, and captain tried to untangle the mess for 10 minutes before admitting defeat, walking ashore, and borrowing a pink-handled "switchblade" camping knife to cut away the twisted pull rope. We tucked tail and headed back, but first stop was to retrieve the lily pad we had attached to a buoy. 

The pad was getting enjoyed by strangers, who had themselves lost their boats to the strong winds. I offered them a ride, which they declined. We had a bit of a time trying retrieving the pad, at different points Jonah screaming for help, Dawson swimming along in the middle of the lake as we circled around, and the pad itself getting blown into the distance. Finally we retrieved it and attached it to the boat, poorly, while the kids frowned as we cruised back to the marina. 

We approached the dock on the right side, and captain Sean did knock the wake-board loose. no problem, we wrapped the blue rope and captain sean got his truck and backed it into the water to retrieve his modest vessel. I was barefoot and helping out as I could on the slimy dock and ramp as all of a sudden, a boat putting in on the other side of our dock got stuck in forward gear and drove up the ramp and onto the dock I was standing on, not unlike a 4X4 tackling an obstacle in moab. I was soaked and when I realized that what was happening next to me waqs actually real, I jumped into our boat and made sure we were all ok (we were). The group apparently had an equipment malfunction that was more like an SNL skit with a movie budget. We couldn't really help but we offered some condolences and honestly were happy to be uninjured. 

 

Sometimes a day like today happens in the perfect way and you just realize that this is a great life.