a life not wasted

"Its tough being this awesome" Mel Apel

This weekend was supposed to be full of bike racing, but work kept me from sneakin up to Ponca and we got word that Crocodile Rock was rained out. So after screwing up a crop study saturday morning (its a long story) Al and I decided to head down to Manhappenin, KS for some shenanigans with the rest of the the flock.
Lil Meener (like lil kim but Persian) and two ton Tanner were in town, Waller had the Jet Ski in tow, the Apels were fresh from a wedding, and we all converged on City park for some grilling and slack lining. Then we drifted to the big ol' front porch of the brick house for more good times as a huge thunderstorm rolled through.
We all met up for brunch where Waller and I busted out blueberry pancakes, Bacon, and shrimp n' grits. We then proceeded to the river.

Now, the KS river is not what I would consider clean or even really something that I would consider safe from a water quality standpoint, but its the most fun to set up on the sand bar, cut the dogs loose, play with the Jet ski, and generally while away a hot KS afternoon.

The BGR Ladies livin la vida mal cabra


We call this game "river fetch".
Someone on the sandbar gives the 'friz a sling, and you must chase it down. It is much harder than it looks.


Team Fetch lets things get a little more crazy as the passenger is obliged to leap from a moving watercraft after the friz

Herr Apel takes off in hot pursuit.


Dog was happy as a pig in poop


Speaking of pigs in poop, Mel and Waller decided to investigate the qualities of a KS river mud wrap


Waller does not know that Brutus just peed upstream of him.


During a break in the action, Tanner explained how fork trail affects steering. Tanner splits his time between designing bikes and making things fly.


Waller busted out the wakeboard. This section of the river is a really great place for power water sports. Its fairly deep, with a well defined channel with a course sand bottom.
Waller run a older model 2 stroke jetski so if it sucks up any water in the event of a turn over it can just be blown out by cranking it a few times. I personally think that its the best investment that he has ever made.

Skiing or boarding is also really easy to learn on a river. You can start knee boarding directly off of the sandbar. Plus the water surface is a 100 times smoother that what you would find in just about any lake since there is no other water craft.

We can be awfully creative when it comes to having fun.