My life before my eyes.....

Finally I come up with a title, oh, but the memories............=P

Yesterday Craig and the kids and I, along with my parents, my brother, his wife, and two of his kids, went up into the Molalla river corridor to spend the day along the river. Bryan bought a quad a few weeks ago, and Craig and I hadn't seen it yet. Mom and dad took the kids up with him last weekend, but Craig and I were working. It was a beautiful day to spend along the river.

Bryan's quad. I guess that is what they call it. Basically it is a dune buggy, but for ATV. It seats two, side by side, with 5 point harnesses, and has a roll bar and a windshield. So, you strap yourself all in, hold onto a bar in front of you, and they harness you in on the sides with a mesh "door." Oh, such protection. Did I want to go on this thing? No, I really didn't. I am not afraid of motorcycles necessarily, I had one when I was a kid. But, you see, I have this problem with the fear of flinging off the side of the mountain into the river below. You know, just one of those funny little phobias people have. And, seeing as we were in the "mountains", oh, lookee, there was a cliff, with the river below. So, they push me into this "contraption" and off we go. Now, I will say, I had my eyes closed half the time, but I did get a good look at the speedometer, and 40mph in this tiny little "thing" up a hill, around corners, in gravel for goodness sake, was a bit much for me. Really, when you are going around the corners, is your machine really supposed to slide sideways in the gravel. Oh yeah, he says it is. Uh, huh, well, I am 5 feet from the edge of the shoulder (ok, so maybe it was a little farther, but it didn't feel like it) so, I'm thinking it is not a good idea to slide sideways. Up a hill we go, into huge dips, over big rocks, dust flying, and he's looking at me laughing "how ya doin? Are ya havin fun? This is fun, isn't it?" and I scream back "I always knew you wanted to kill me, is this your opportunity?" and then he laughs.

Now, I have to say, my mother told me it was fun. He took her last weekend, she thought it was great. So, I'm thinking, he either went easy on her, or the lady is really loosening up a bit too much in her old age.

Craig, on the other hand, thought it was a blast, and now he wants one.

And so does Koben, who wanted several rides, and spent a chunk of the day ready to go with his gloves and helmet on. But, really, he is three. He doesn't know he could be hurdled off the side of a mountain at any minute. He thinks it's great fun. But he trusts everyone.

So, other than the 15 minutes of my near death experience, in which my life flashed before my eyes (didn't take very long) we had a really good day.

We had a nice spot by the river, built a fire. Looked at the salmon.

Oh yes, the salmon. Apparently we set up our day camp at the spot the hatchery has been dumping the salmon to put nutrients in the water so that the wild salmon will come up and spawn. So, here we sit, in front of us, about 15 salmon, all about 2 feet long, with their tales cut off and their bellies split open and all their eggs all over the place. Priceless, really. So, we grabbed long sticks, and pushed them down the river a little further, so that they were in deeper water, and would not smell. Sounds worse then it actually was. Then we roasted hot dogs and marshmallows, wandered around, looked at the river, and I got in some good book reading time. It was a very nice day all and all.

Except for the part where I almost lost my life.

Ok, ok, so I wasn't even close.

But man, it sure felt like it.