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Lake Tahoe - A Pain in the Butt
When my mom was married to her second husband, Larry, every summer we went on vacation somewhere. We would load down the van with luggage, drinks, and groceries. I can remember traveling many a mile with my hand stuck in a box of Lucky Charms.
Larry would take out one of the back seats in the Aerostar van we had, and Keri and I would lay down in the floor, our feet propped up on the backseat, and sleep. Every few miles or so, my parents would wake us up to see something, frustrated that we were missing out on this opportunity to "see the world".
One year we vacationed in California. During our drive we passed by Lake Tahoe and made a pit stop to take pictures. The view was Majestic, breathtaking. We pulled over at a little roadside viewing area set high above the Lake. We were still a distance from the Lake, but close enough to have an amazing view. That year my mom had purchased Keri and I each a little camera, and as mom snapped away on her big camera, Keri and I decided to take some pictures of our own. I took Keri's picture first, just a simple upper body shot of her standing in front of me, holding her camera, with the lake in the background. I then posed for my picture to be taken, but Keri wanted to get a little more creative with her shot. She had me back up and repose. She still wasn't able to get all of me, so waved me back, and back, and back..........
-Now I should mention here that the area where we were parked at had a small viewing area, and then dropped off into a very steep incline, before reaching the edge of a deep cliff-
After getting a couple of shots of me with my feet chopped off, Keri had the bright idea to have me go down the hill a little bit, so that I would be closer to the lake. As she watched through her camera lens so that she could tell me when I had gone far enough. I slowly started making my way down the dirt "hill" as Keri's voice droned on in the background....."just a little further...... a little further....". I don't know how many of you have ever tried to walk down a very steep dirt incline, but I can tell you from experience, it can't be done. The force of gravity and momentum work against your leisurely pace. What started out as a slow careful walk, quickly turned into a speed walk and then a run. Helpless to stop myself, I soon lost my balance and rolled the rest of the way down the hill, barreling towards the cliff drop off.
As luck would have it, I crashed into a tree which stopped my mad progress down the hill, and saved me from going over the edge of the cliff. Thankfully I was not seriously injured, but I did not come out unscathed. I had several scrapes and bruises, and an ass full of cactus needles. I painfully crawled my way back up the incline and Keri helped me into the van. Her punishment for getting me into that predicament: pulling cactus needles out of my butt.
Oh......and thanks once again Keri for rubbing the lotion on my butt after removing all the needles. While the thought was very kind of you, the alcohol in the lotion hurt worse than the cactus needles. :-)
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