My dad used to always yell when things did not go right, when you screwed up. He would always say “when are you going to learn to think things through?” “of all the num-skull things to do”

Well…………One early spring we went to Crane Prairie Reservoir for opening day of trout season. That was always one of our favorite places to go.  This was after I was married and had one child and was very pregnant with a set of twins. We brought a friend of ours with us who was a large man. He brought his bronco, we brought our car and dad and mom brought the white Chevy pickup pulling an 18’ blue and white boat with a small cabin that had a bunk on each side of the cabin and a small chamber pot type toilet.

Crane Prairie was a little low that year and it was a bigger boat then the small ones usually launched there so you always had to take off backwards and then slam your brakes on and pop the boat off. Timing was very important as my dad found out the hard way.

He took off backwards into the water and slammed his brakes on, oh no!!! to far!!! The brakes were wet and the pickup just kept going. He launched the boat, boat trailer and pickup. The water was pouring into the pickup. He crawled up onto the cab and hollered for us to get the bronco and pull him out.  The boat was floating beside the pickup, our watermelon was floating around. The Styrofoam cooler was floating off another direction. Our sleeping bags were kind of floating and sinking. Things were going every which way.  Pete was running for the bronco, my ex and my mom were scurrying all over trying to grab things out of the water that they could reach and me…………

I was laughing so hard the tears were running. I was useless as can be. I yelled “of all the num-skull stunts I have ever seen” “you should have though that one through before you did it” etc. and on and on as I laughed uncontrollably.

My dad by now was sitting on top of the cab of the pickup yoga style with everything floating around him yelling at me to help. Then he could not help it he started laughing uncontrollably too.

We finally got the pickup pulled out of the water and watched as water flowed out both doors. They got the boat pulled up and went around getting all of our camping gear and watermelon and gas cans etc. Man that water was cold.

The Styrofoam cooler was ate off right at the water line from the gas and oil I guess. I mean ate clear gone, no trace of it at all, just the part below the water line.

We went back up to the camp and spread all our clothes, sleeping bags etc. on tree limbs and what rope we could find and started a big fire hoping to dry things out. Clothes were hanging on anything and every thing, we looked like a homeless camp. The pickup was sitting there with both doors open.

We ate sandwiches for supper and decided to cut the watermelon. Well they should use watermelon to clean up gas spills because when we cut into that melon it smelled just like someone opened a can of gasoline. I am surprised it did not blow up. It had absorbed lots of gas.  No watermelon for us.

  

We continued to try and get things dry. No such luck.  My ex and me slept in one of the sleeping bags we had in our car and believe me it was a tight fit. Remember I pregnant with twins and I am huge. My ex is 6’ tall and this was a close encounter. If one person moved you both had to move. This is called spooning extreme. I swear we had to breathe together.

Pete, he had brought a sleeping bag too and my eldest daughter slept in his sleeping bag with him. That was even a tight fit.

Dad and Mom, well we gathered all the clothes we could find and piled them in the boat on those little hard bench beds and they slept there and froze all night long. They could not even snuggle to help them keep warm. 

We were lucky by the next night the other sleeping bags had dried and we all got our own sleeping bag.

One of those trips we are still laughing over. Why is it that the trips that things go wrong are the ones down the line you laugh and remember so well?