Floating Down a Lazy River

What better note to end the pre-Labor Day summer season on than a float down a lazy river? And this float turned out to be even lazier than we’d anticipated. Vermont has received very little rain lately, so while the water was clear and pretty, it was also low and slow (it never got to a depth of more than about 5 feet, and usually was no more than a foot). That made navigation on the White River difficult, as we kept getting stuck on the rocks.

At Vermont River Tubing, near Stockbridge, we put our inner tubes (actually they were more like giant rubber duckies) into the water, along with three other adventurers who are locals, but had never done the tubing here before. They had a great sense of humor and made the expedition more fun, despite the frustration of getting caught up on the rocks so often. We finally decided we had to cheat a little bit; we all picked up sticks to propel ourselves from the bottom a la Huck Finn. The float took about twice as long as estimated. But hey, that’s what lazy rivers at the end of summer are for. Fortunately, we were near the finish line when Kimberly’s tube sprang a leak.