The Annual Pontoon Ride

You might recall from previous years that when we get together at the cabin, there is usually an evening pontoon ride.  The pontoon is rickety, worn out, a well-loved hunk of junk.  Every year I get on this pontoon, which looks substantially worse in comparison to the year before, with my life jacket.  I board the pontoon because something crazy always happens on the pontoon ride.

This year was no exception.

Uncle Bryan was the pontoon pilot.

The teenagers had taken the pontoon out the night before.  Before we boarded, YaYa told Dr. Peds there was about a half tank of gas left.  Did we need more gas?  Dr. Peds said we were probably just going to the middle of the lake, zooming around a couple times and coming back.  It should be fine.

It was a lovely evening.  Uncle Bryan took us around the perimeter of the lake.  We had a great time looking at all the different lake cabins.  We waved at other groups on their lovely, shiny pontoons as we passed them in the water.  They tried not to gape at our crew sitting on worn out benches and lawn chairs thrown on the deck because certain parts of this pontoon are just, well . . . missing. Like seats.  I think seats are missing.  And other important things too.  

We accidentally left one cousin behind because we thought that she didn’t want to join us.  She was sad about that, but it turned out to be our best move yet, because she called her parents’ cell phone and they told her to jump on a jetski and meet us in the middle of the lake.  She did.

And then, right at the very farthest point we could be from our cabin, we ran out of gas.  The engine sputtered.  We floated silently along.  Then we yelled as loudly as we could and waved for that cousin to come back on her jetski.  Eventually she saw our arms maniacally flying in the air and headed back.

It was then decided that she would board the pontoon and her two sisters would drive the jetski back to the cabin to get a gas can. 

They headed off.  We dropped anchor (a large concrete block attached to a rope) so we didn’t float away Meanwhile, these two decided that they might as well swim in while we waited.

YaYa may have gotten thrown in.  Or maybe she jumped of her own accord.  I can’t actually remember.  Soon she was floating away in the water. 

They splashed around with the floaty for what seemed like forever.  Uncle Bryan was following the rescuers on his tracking cell phone app.  It seemed to be taking a long time.  This was because we later found out that the jetski almost ran out of gas on its way home.  Then the girls looked for a gas can.  They found about fourteen empty gas cans.  So they decided they had better take the truck to the gas station to get gas.  (They have drivers licenses).  The truck was almost out of gas!  But they made it.  They put gas in the truck, and in a gas can, and made their way back to the cabin.  They filled the jetski, hopped on it with a gas can and drove off.  One cousin was driving the jetski, and one was holding on tightly to the gas can, but on the trip to our pontoon, the jetski hit a bump and the cousin holding the gas can nearly flew off with the gas can into the lake.  Thankfully that did not happen.

They made it!  The pontoon started back up.  We weren’t going fast, but then we realized the anchor was still down at the bottom of the lake.  We pulled up the cement block  and drove off away from the sunset back to the cabin, with yet another hilarious pontoon story.