It was a gray day in February. I had to have been in about 7th or 8th grade. My best friend Megan and I were upstairs playing with her toy horses or zoo animals or something to that nature. Her sister Kayla was getting ready for all her friends to come over for her birthday party. Megan and I had a great idea suddenly!
Let's take Shasta for a walk to the creek and pretend we're explorers! So we took the snuggly yellow lab and told her mom we'd be back shortly. We walked down the street towards the giant gray building with the smoke stacks on top. Smurfit papermill. Ahhh the smell of crap and woodchips in the morning. So off we went turning left at the end of the street and walking down to the old house with the big property. I still don't know if anyone lived there or not but it was old just the same. We trotted through the side yard and around to the blackberry bushes that concealed a trail. After we fought the bushes we headed down the path to a small valley. It's a very quiet place. The path stops abruptly at the bottom and you have to continue walking through wheat-like grasses. The color down in that valley was dull because of the winter sky. The trees weren't as green, the grass wasn't as rich, and the water that ran through it was a dirty brown. We chased Shasta around and threw sticks for her for awhile and decided to throw one across the little creek. She jumped right in and swam over to get it. She wouldn't swim back though. We tried our hardest to get her over the creek but she wanted us to come across with her. Megan and I only had sweatshirts on for some reason. We were dressed as if it was a sunny spring day with a slight cool breeze. I don't know why we weren't already frozen. Megan and I jumped in the creek. It was higher than normal because of all the rain and we had no idea where the water came from or where it went. We jumped out the other side shaking and chattering. Shasta was extremely excited and Megan (being the adventurer she is) decided it would be fun to float down the creek a little. I was easily persuaded and we jumped in and attempted to float for a few seconds and decided it was waaaaaay to cold. Shasta had followed us in so there we were, three beings attempting to crawl out of a freezing creek in the beginning of February in Oregon. By then I couldn't feel my fingers and toes. Megan was cold too but decided she'd take over and try and get us back home. Unfortunately when we floated down creek we passed an obstacle on dry land that would prevent us from getting back to the path safely. We had to hoof it straight up a hill between trees and balckberry bushes. Shasta, of course, thought it was all good fun. Megan and I were struggling up the hill. I couldn't feel anything and started to cry. I couldn't look up because the top was so far away but I couldn't look down because it reminded me how stupid I was. We finally reached the top with scratches and bruises and headed past the house. We walked down the street with cars passing us and slowing down wondering why we were soaked in jeans and sweatshirts in February. We turned right onto our street and walked to her house where her mom was waiting for us. The first thing that came from her mouth was
, Megan! What di you do? Deborah is going to freak if she finds out about this!! She turned on a lukewarm bath upstairs and downstairs so me and Meg could soak in our humility for awhile. It hurt so bad to sit in that tub. My body was barely warming up and I was scared I had frostbite. Luckily my body warmed and I got out refreshed and embarrassed. Megan came downstairs and we both got a good scolding from Cindy. Needless to say, we never did that again in the winter time. In the summers we'd often find little creeks and float after that incident. Then Megan got stung by a nettle underwater and we floated past a Nutria turd so we decided to stop our creek floats permanently.
I will never forget our adventures as children. We had so many thanks to Megan's creativity and wild animal mind.
