Bikes and Boats and Family Memories

There was a big bike race here this weekend. We ate our usual pancake breakfast out on the front porch so we could watch the bikers getting ready. It was a Criterion- which I learned is basically a bike race in which the bikers ride a short circular(ish) course several times in order to qualify for some other- supposedly more important- race in the future. The course went right by our house and there were LOTS of heats- from 8:45 AM until after 5PM. The kids LOVED it. They cheered the bikers on and used the "clappy hands" that our neighbor Nick handed out. All the neighborhood was out, enjoying the morning and socializing. Tanner kept yelling, " Go Bikes, Go!"
and "You can do it, Bikes!". We spent several hours doing this, then headed indoors for some much needed rest.

Later we headed out on a spur-of-the-moment exploration of a local reservoir about 20 miles away. We swam at the beach there, then checked out the marina and drooled over the ski boats and Sea Doos, already scheming on how we could make the summer ski lifestyle that I grew up with our own.

I grew up skiing from the time I was Jake's age. As I remember it, we lived on the boat during the summers, camping, RVing once, renting houses on the Delta, houseboating, etc... Some of my strongest family memories are centered around those trips. Even today I am moved almost to tears (No, I am not kidding) by that small whiff of gasoline in the summer air that reminds me of our old Evenrude engine, sitting around on the boat, docked at a gas pump sipping Diet Coke or Corona.

Over the last few months it has struck me how much I want my kids to grow up on the lake, or on the Delta, or on the Lucky Peak Reservoir. On a boat. Anywhere that they come back to year after year. I want them to bring friends and sit in the water making up new games like "Funoodle Ball" and wake up at the crack of dawn to get the "glassy water".

So, I am adding "buy a boat" to my longterm goals. Put the kids through college, retire... somewhere in there I want to throw in "buy a boat". It doesn't have to be anything fancy (Yes, I know there are many of you out there now thinking, "Yes, but think who you are married to!"). There are lots of things to figure out and learn: how to drive a boat, how to pull a boat, how to launch a boat, where to store a boat, how to finance a boat, etc... But there is no doubt in my mind that we will do it. Somehow and someday.

My dad started with a used boat purchased for $3000. It ran (well... mostly) for 12 years and sold for $3000 before buying a fancier model. It got lots of use and was the backdrop for more memories than I can count. That boat was just about the best 3000 dollars ever spent. Come to think of it, Dad was just about the age I am now when he purchased that boat. 37 years old. But he had 4 kids- two of them almost out of high school and two just starting Kindergarten. If he could do it, so can I, I guess.

Well, here's to making more family memories- on a boat or at a bike race. Enjoy the season!