More fun than you can have with your...cell phone off!

What else do you do on a Saturday in July when it's 95 degrees and oppressively humid? "Hit the river," that's what I say.

I've been getting email from Farmington River Tubing for at least 5 years and finally, on Saturday, we indulged.

Er, it was hardly an indulgence, since, for a mere twenty dollars we each enjoyed two and a half hours of pure bliss floating down the icy cold Farmington River about 90 miles north of home.

It's a pretty simple operation. You don your suit (and something on your feet -- Crocs for me, Aquasox for Todd), hand over your crisp 20, and "put in." Then you glide blissfully for two-plus hours...with absolutely nothing around but trees, blue sky, a few waterfowl, and a handful of other gliders.* And no technology!

Since you're pretty much guaranteed to take a couple of serious soakers (there are three sets of "rapids"), you can't take anything with you but the suit you're wearing and the life vest they give you...including a cell phone. Mon dieu! How will all of these people survive o-n-e h-u-n-d-r-e-d and t-h-i-r-t-y m-i-n-u-t-e-s without yapping into their droids and iPhones and not tapping out texts on their Crackberries?!

Somehow, miraculously albeit, all of those around us seemed to emerge from the water completely intact, despite this serious hardship.

I'm pasting a stock photo from the FRT website, since (get this) we couldn't take our digital cameras along for the ride! Definitely, this was a lot of fun and something we'll do again.

*The water level was pretty low, so apparently, it was particularly relaxing (and slow) on Saturday. And, despite record-breaking heat and humidity for several oppressive days in a row, there were a lot of people, but it never felt too crowded.