Tunesday : Tubin'

Tubin'

(Written by Kim Carnes) Arranged by Mudcat 

I could retire on a Caterpillar tire
Somewhere on a river in the great US
The world slidin' by
Every day is July
Just tubin' down the river with my mind at rest

Now man wasn't made to stay locked up in a cage
And workin' all day ain't that much fun to do
It's gonna come to pass
I'll leave the steel and the glass
Floating down the river down the tube with you

Reuben Reuben let's go tubin'
Won't you take me far away
We could live on love forever
And you know that life should be that way

Now maybe tomorrow find some time I can borrow
A dream just needs a window you can climb on through
Don't wanna wake up some day to find that I passed away
Before I floated on a river down the tube with you

Floatin' down the river got my mind at rest
Down a lazy river now I'm living' my best
Sunshine on a river down the tube with you

I had never heard this song before I went looking for one about tubing, so while it has no particular meaning for me, it does pretty much capture the feeling I had tubing down the Grand River this past weekend, so it'll do fine.

So, in keeping with my personal project this summer of getting the know the local river, I went tubing with Dave, Kennedy and Zach (Mallory thought the whole thing sounded hot and boring - she'll come if we end up doing the white water tubing in Elora, which I hope we do). We showed up to Canoeing the Grand at our reserved time, and it was busy and it took a while for all of the groups to get signed in and assigned to shuttles, but soon enough, we were being driven up to our river access point. Because the tubes themselves "are technically flotation devices", tubing apparently doesn't require lifejackets, so the only equipment we needed were the four tubes, two (optional) paddles, and three straps for tying us all together. On the way to the event we had stopped at the grocery store to get a picnic, so once we were in the water and afloat, we broke into our lunches and started eating (Dave noted later that we could have broken the rules and brought alcohol along as well, and maybe another time we would).

I knew that the tubes were supposed to have bottoms on them (more a round raft than an inner tube), but what I didn't realise was that the bottoms are water permeable and our bums were soaking in a constant level of water (no need for bailing, but by design, we got wet and only Dave thought to wear an actual bathing suit - we didn't even bring towels, so live and learn). Happily, the day was gorgeous - all blue sky and sunshine - and the water was warm and clear. I also didn't realise just how shallow the water level is along this stretch of the river - we got stuck in several places, and either Dave would stand up and pull the rest of us along the top of the rounded rocks, or we would all need to stand up and get to deeper water again. We've had such an unusually rainy spring that I can't imagine how this stretch could even be tubed come the drying heat of August.

Even so, this was a relaxing experience for most of the time - just snacking and talking and floating along with the current. Most of the stretch that we went through doesn't even have walking trails or access points along the banks, so like Dave said, on the river is the only way to see this part of the river, and there was plenty to see; plenty of birds anyway: the flashing red of cardinals and house finches, the lumbering dignity of great blue herons in flight, flocks of mallard ducks skimming in low formation over the river, gulls hovering and watching for food scraps (and why do we deride the gulls and celebrate the ducks?), swallows in their dozens flitting in and out of the nests hung from the sides of the Fairway Road bridge, Canada Geese nestled along the riverbank with their lone sentinel watching us discreetly but surely, and near the end, some kind of hawk that circled above us until it attracted more of its kind and we couldn't figure out what kind of attraction we appeared to be from their vantage (there was something kind of vulturish about their long necks and we wondered if we looked like carrion, but the closer they circled to us, the more hawkish they appeared, weird). 

Swallow Nests

It took us almost three hours to float back to the site of Canoeing the Grand, and we all agreed that that had been the perfect length of time. And the greatest lesson we learned: How could we have lived in the area for as long as we have and never done this before? And that's the whole point of our summer of Grand River adventures.