Posted 10:50 AM by Floyd

There was no blogging last weekend because I was busy having fun. My friend Scott took my wife and I river tubing on Cache Creek. I spent considerable time Friday and Saturday preparing for the trip; my biggest effort was simply finding tubes, as the sporting goods stores had held sales last week to clear out their inventory.

Sunday we woke up "early" -- 7:15 a.m. is early only for lazy folk like the McWilliamses -- and drove up to Daly City to meet Scott. Then we drove our car and Scott's Mustang across the Bay Bridge, along the San Pablo Bay, across to Vallejo, northeast to Sacramento, and north on 505. After a few miles on 505 we took 16 west and drove along Cache Creek. After about 20 miles of driving through rural California, we left a car at the destination, left our cooler halfway down the creek, and drove up to the launching point.

After a few minutes inflating our tubes, we embarked -- and immediately faced our first set of rapids. Right then I found out that river tubing is fun. Cache Creek is mostly a Class 2 rapids river with some easy Class 3 rapids. This would be boring in a boat, but is challenging in a tube. Also, conditions were perfect: The water was not too cold, and the temperature was in the high 90s.

The tubing run was only about six miles long, but took five hours to navigate in our tubes. Halfway through we stopped for lunch, which was sandwiches, grapes, cookies, beer for me, water for Scott and Sherry. Soon after lunch we hit the "Mother" rapids, the roughest stretch of whitewater. We made it through unscathed. Sherry did take a tumble later, and Scott had bailed on some rough rapids near the start. I made it through with no spills.

The only blemishes on our outing were that when we shuttled the cars after finishing, we found that someone had taken Scott's cooler! I imagine that someone was cleaning up rather than stealing, as it was a used cooler with nothing of value in it. Also, I did not put sunscreen on my upper thighs and by the time we were ready to go, they were cherry-red and radiating.

On the way back we stopped by the Cache Creek Indian Casino to hit the buffet. I had better sum up Indian Casinos for my non-American readers: Earlier in America's history, a bunch of white people stole the Indians' land. So they get to operate casinos.

That made no sense. Let me explain: During the last phase of Western expansion, America subjugated many Indian tribes. The American government signed peace treaties with them, and maintained a pretense that the Indian tribes were still independent nations. These "nations" aren't able to interact with foreign countries, but they are exempt from some domestic laws. Over the last few decades, many tribes have taken advantage of their special status and have opened casinos. (Indian reservations also undertake other forms of commerce unavailable to most Americans, like selling cigarettes tax-free.)

So in the middle of nowhere in rural California -- Brooks, population 92, near metropoli such as Gundia, population 550 -- is this enormous building, with a parking garage under construction and a huge parking lot past it. I found it disconcerting to be standing across from a field of crops, waiting for a shuttle bus. It was still tremendously hot, and the bus was not well air-conditioned, so we were fairly uncomfortable by the time we arrived at the casino. The buffet was $16, which seemed overpriced. At least we got to drink a lot of water and soft drinks.