"If you spend too much time thinking about a thing, you’ll never get it done.” – Bruce Lee
Wow. It was 9 years ago that I sat down and began to tell the story that my heart longed to tell: the story of my relationship with Deborah, the love of my life. I called this story "A Wondrous Journey" and it truly has been. Filled with twists and turns; unexpected gifts and challenges; and always, valuable lessons. And in the 1st 6 chapters, I wrote about our courtship - the story of how we met and fell in love.
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| "Come Fly with Me" ~ Lake Tahoe July 2009 |
But then my mind stalled for awhile. What more could I write about? What might be the next path that I would explore on this journey? I was stumped for a bit. And I felt the press of time. As I've aged, it's become more and more evident to me that I do not have "all the time in the world" anymore to tell the stories that live in me. Thinking is not doing, as Mr. Lee observed. If I don't sit down and do this, these stories will fade away. And that would be a shame. I cannot let time just slip away like sand in my hands on the beach.
Then like a dormant ember, sparked by the breeze of an opening door and leaping to life, inspiration lit the dusty cobwebs of my mind. "Ah ha! That's it!" And so the journey continues...
"As soon as I saw you, I knew adventure was going to happen." ~ A. A. Milne
The last chapter I wrote was about an adventure Deborah and I shared on the Rogue River back in our courting days. It was just the 1st of many semi-wild and memorable experiences we have shared over the years. So that's what I'll write about next for awhile: other feats of "derring-do" that have amused and thrilled us over the years. There have been many! There has always been an "adventurer's" gene buried inside this quiet stoic German/Finn - and all it took to ignite it was to be paired with a spunky, brave, extroverted Italian from southern California! And as they say, the rest is history!
So here's the 1st entry in this next set of stories. A tale about sailing over Lake Tahoe.
Lake Tahoe was the 1st special vacation place we went to together as a couple. We'd been to the beaches of Oregon. We'd visited Deborah's parents in southern California. But Tahoe was the place we chose for our 1st "exotic" summer getaways after getting married. Deborah had spent many summers there with her family growing up. Tahoe had long been a DeMattia destination. But this "world traveler" had never been there. So it seemed a perfect place to explore together. Close enough to drive to easily; but far enough away to feel "alien" and exciting.
The 1st time we went was in the summer of 2008; two years after our wedding. But it wasn't much fun. I attended a week long workshop on Advanced Placement Economics at a local college there. The Medford District paid for our trip. We stayed at a North Tahoe relic: the "Circus/Circus" hotel once haunted by Sinatra, Martin, Sammy, et al. But because of my class schedule, we really didn't have time to explore and adventure. So we were happy to plan a return trip there the next summer in July 2009.
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| Beach side, Lake Tahoe - July 2009 |
This time we stayed at the Tahoe Sands - a hotel directly alongside the lake in North Tahoe. Unlike the last year, we now could literally walk from our room down to the sandy beaches and bask and swim to our hearts content. And we did just that. Umbrellas and inner tubes and sunscreen were our daily gear. "Beach-bumming" was the vocation of choice.
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| Looking a little pink! - Beach Bumming |
We also spent hours hiking the trails in the pine woods around Tahoe. We shared mid-morning meditations as the warming pines censed the air. We hugged a tree or two just for the fun of it. We spent entire days outside until the sun set - and we ended those evenings with long walks along the lake as the pink glow faded. Good memories.
We showed up at dockside and joined another couple to be ferried out to the speedboat for our rides. Gray clouds skirted across the sky and it was warm and humid. A breeze rustled the long locks of our teenaged boatman as he shuttled us out to meet our fate. We chatted nervously with him - making small talk, and pretending that we were all "cool" about the upcoming experience - even though at least I was a little anxious about the fact that I'd soon be 500 feet in the air over Lake Tahoe being towed by a speedboat. Not exactly in my wheel house!
We boarded the speed boat and drove out to the middle of the huge lake. Once there, the two crew members strapped up the other couple 1st and hoisted them up in the air. They squealed a little as they rose into the sky, and then again as the driver put the boat in motion and started towing them around the lake. All in all, it looked not so scary and a bit fun. The 1st couple was hauled back down and then it was our turn.
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| Off We Go! - July 28 2009 |
Strapped in, belts cinched...up we went. Deborah squealed a bit - she's always been a bit wary of heights. I sucked in a deep breath as we rose and the massive blue lake shrank below us. There we were. 500 feet up. I remember being disappointed a bit. I'd expected a feeling of movement; of wind rushing past my face as we motored around the lake. But it was surprising calm. The boat below wasn't really going very fast; and we were just two little kites slowly tagging along with it. The view was unique; but one thing caught both Deborah and my eyes. The gray clouds in the sky were starting to darken and gather ominously. it was clear an afternoon thunderstorm was approaching and neither of us wanted to be up in the sky at the end of a metal cable when it arrived.
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| High in the Sky |
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| Look Ma - No hands! |
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| Getting our toes wet |
Fortunately, the crew had also noticed this and had begun to haul us down. They played around a bit with us, bouncing us near the surface so we could dip our toes in the lake. But all we wanted was to be back in the boat and headed to the shelter of shore. We settled safely into the boat and looked over our shoulders tensely as the crew slowly stowed the chutes. The clouds were rolling down the mountains around the lake and a chill wind began to whistle. "Get us to shore", we silently whispered. The speedboat set off, But it couldn't go all the way in. Our intrepid teen boatman had to shuttle us the last 200 yards into the shore.
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| Here it comes...head for shore! |
As we climbed down into the small tender, the teen gave us a hand to steady us. As he did, both Deborah and I saw a sight we would NEVER forget. The air above the lake was so charged with static electricity that the kid's hair was LITERALLY STANDING STRAIGHT UP ON END, like a plugged in Einstein! He seemed totally oblivious to this fact as he revved the outboard motor to putt putt us in. We were aghast. Though we didn't say anything, I know what we were both thinking. Lightning bolts with our names on it were just about to be delivered!
With all our mental force, we willed that little boat to go faster. When it stopped, 20 feet from the sand, we leaped out, as the thunder clapped and the skies opened up and buckets of rain began falling. We sloshed through the knee deep water and then ran to the nearest canopy we could find. Another monstrous roll of thunder boomed and the rain pelted everything. But we were safe. And the storm grumbled disappointingly.
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| A Very Wet Deborah! |
What an adventure! On subsequent trips to Tahoe, I never looked at the sky quite so naively again. Loved its beauty. But I've always kept a sharp eye on its intentions ever since. A good lesson learned. To this day, we still laugh at the memories of that July afternoon above the Lake. It set a precedent for other adventures that would follow.
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| A friendlier Tahoe sky later that night |
But those stories are for another chapter...hopefully coming sooner than later...
