2004aug10. I went tubing on the Salt River (horrible website, beware) with nine other people, some of whom I actually knew. You pay $12 for tube rental and the bus ride there and back. They hold onto a driver’s license for anywhere from one to five tubes. We ended up with thirteen big ole’ tubes, since we had three coolers. At the river’s edge, all the tubes were lashed together, the coolers were jammed into the tubes, everyone put towels down on the hot rubber, and we shoved off into an unknown future. Of tubing.
There is a “party-like” atmosphere to the tubing experience. Other tubers bring along their jamboxes and lash them to the tops of coolers. Some tubers construct large boxy pyramid-type enclosed stereo systems with big speakers and it’s not clear how the whole thing doesn’t just tip into the water. One homegrown stereo system was the same size as my last apartment’s stove. These stereo-encumbered people “share” their music with the rest of the tubing community, at no expense. Jimmy Buffett? There is a god.
The river’s current was pretty fast, and we were occasionally shoved into shore by an uncaring system of rapids. At one point there was a cliff area which was used for diving. Here the undertow was pretty fierce, and it required two people to “anchor” the system of 13 tubes while a few members went off to try to crack their skulls. While we waited, three sixteen-year-old girls sputtered up the river from downstream, sharing one tube between the three of them. One of them was rescued by a guy from our party, as she kept getting water in her lungs. Then they passed us, then the tube came floating back by itself, then the girls came back to get it, then the one girl was saved again, then they started upstream again, then the girl was saved, then the tube got lost again. Theoretically, at least lung girl was drunk, but I think everyone including the tube was soused. Our party members bailed on the cliff action -- too dangerous – and we cast off again, into an unknown future. An unknown tubing future.
When we got to the “exit point,” you had to pull off the river to catch the bus back. The river was about two feet deep there and about 40 feet wide. I stationed myself out in the middle of the river, grabbing a multitude of discarded beer cans as they went by – submerged or floating. The current was strong enough that if you fell down, you’d be carried off downstream before you could get a foothold. Then three other people in our group started collecting cans as well, and we ended up grabbing about 100 cans, plastic bags, footwear, cigarette butts, and other debris -- we also scored two full uncracked cans of beer, one big full uncracked Wiper Fluid Gatorade jug, and two full uncracked bottles of water. Missed the underwater camera, lost some sunscreen. I felt like a bear letting piss-poor corporate beersalmon come to it. RARRRRRRR BUD LIGHT RARRRRRR MGD RARRRRRR BUDWEISER