Rare air

"How was your drive?"

Harrowing. How could it not be? We had ventured away from home for the first time in months. Just for fun? A little break? A visit with family? Something our minds (and the pits of our stomachs) told us we were fools to venture.

But the queasiness that had settled in on the 90-minute drive to the lake was easily smoothed by a light meal and the promise of hours spent splashing around in the summer-warmed water. 

"Car sickness is worth it," yelled my son as he pedaled his feet, propelling a bright yellow stand-up surfboard around the edge of the water in circles."

As we plunked down into deck chairs and slathered our shoulders with sunscreen, he sluiced along the water's edge testing his buoyancy. 

It had been two years since he'd visited the cousins, but he would never forget how to navigate this wondrous contraption. 

It was like falling off a bike. Only the landings were soft and wet and didn't end up causing road rash. 

"I've got it," he yelled with delight as his right hand squeezed what looked like a brake lever on a bicycle handlebar.  

He satisfactorily drifted around 

 the dock and made his way to the inflatable trampoline island just a few well-heeled foot pumps away. 

No one minded him being over his head since he was wearing a life vest. With it, he'd never be out of his depth. 

"This place is better than Disneyland," he declared with the full-throated approval only someone who knows he will never, ever, set foot in THE Magic Kingdom during his childhood so long as his parents are footing the bill for the trips. 

Stupid parents. 

His sister had reached the bouncing island the old-fashioned way: she'd swam there. Arm-over-head, digging into the water with her ice cream scoop hands, just how the swim instructors had taught her when she was just a tot.

She rolled gracefully every third stroke, adding a moment of back float during each rotation. 

This is the life. 

The cousins had places to go and people to see, so they excused themselves and offered a new toy that we might practice in their absence. 

"You know how to surf, right?"

They'd seen our Christmas cards, the kids with Santa hats pasted on their heads in our Vacationland photos of surf camps past. They could tell that the waves were real, no matter how small.

It took two men to carry the thing down a steep set of dock stairs, shuffling along the sway-backed ramp to the water. 

The cousin gleefully unzipped the insulated covers that protected what appeared to be an overturned RV dining table attached to a small watercraft propeller.

He eased it into the water before easing himself in to demonstrate. 

The table and the host quietly sped away. The next time we saw him, he and the board were quite literally flying over the water, not 10 meters away from where we stood in slack-jawed silence.

This is the stuff of legend. The stuff sci-fi and Marty McFly had promised. 

"Just play with it, and have fun. Even if you can't stand up, you can have a lot of fun just letting it tow you around."

The cousin was gone, and my daredevil girl was already in the water putt-putting around before my mind had clenched around reality. 

He just left us alone with a flying surfboard!

Before I could say "hold on just minute," my daughter had already fallen off twice and learned a terrifying lesson about losing balance, trigger grip tightness, and board bounce in that rocket-fast order. 

Soon, she was gliding around the perimeter in circles, leaning into turns, and accelerating the straightaways hoping to achieve liftoff she might sustain.

Less than an hour later, she caught air. 

Now it was my turn to feel queasy. The smile on my daughter's face told me all I needed to know. This will always be better than Disneyland.