Michelle Coffey: 40 Most Memorable Water Experiences

1. Riding Maid of the Mist – Niagara Falls
2. Lying on the pontoon, inches from the water, while John Dan sails
3. Jacuzzi bath in hospital room before John’s birth
4. Canoe trip – JD and me, facing each other – a fish jumped out of the water, over the canoe and back into the water between us
5. Canoe trip - JD and me - we ducked way down in the canoe and went under a low bridge instead of porting, the canoe scraped slightly and when we came out the other side we saw that our canoe was full of daddy long legs.
6. Using the aluminum boat to explore Caddo Lake
7. Playing my guitar, sitting on a rock in the middle of the river in Glen Rose
8. Doing the BSA 1 mile swim
9. 10th grade science field trip, swimming in a forest lake, the guys in their underwear and the girls fully dressed
10. Hiking through the river at Turner Falls
11. Catching a sting ray from our sailboat at the Gulf Coast
12. Snorkeling in Hanuma Bay, Hawaii (I don’t know how to spell it)
13. Youth canoe trip – I was a HS senior, given the steering position in the back and ran my partner and I straight into a tree. We both slid off our seat up towards the front of the canoe. I couldn’t stop laughing. My partner didn’t think it was so funny.
14. Mayfest hail disaster – all 4 of us in our van that day, trying to get home, couldn’t keep driving so we pulled next to a curb under a tree to wait it out awhile. The kids kept cheering for all the splashes that the hail was making in all the water of the street. We got some major dings but didn’t get the glass cracked.
15. Using the yellow sailboat to ride in the water flowing in from of our house
16. Family trips to the Oregon coast
17. Canoeing with Carolyn and John on the Shenandoah River during a storm
18 Fighting through swarms of black flies at the water’s edge to float in Salt Lake which was full of tiny brine shrimp
19. Boating through ice bergs in Alaska
20. Rafting down the Colorado River in Utah
21 Washing my hair in snowmelt cold water at Lost Lake in New Mexico
22. Summer fun as a kid with a sprinkler, a hose and a trash can
23. Parent/child swim class with each of my children
24. Teen swim night at the city pool in Independence, Oregon – 5 guys would try to dunk me and mostly they could not
25. Swim class for P.E. – if you failed the test or didn’t take it, you had to take swimming – I didn’t take the test so I could take swimming
26. Throwing Jenness & Clark boys off of the dock
27. Throwing my kids back and forth to JD so they could catch “cotton candy” (the clouds)
28. For a time – collecting water form the different places I’d been (a very cheap souvenir)
29. Standing close to the bottom of Multnomah Falls and feeling the thundering power and getting drenched
30. Sitting with friends from church along a row of rock with river water pouring over our shoulders
31. Canoeing with JD down the Guadalupe River & happening to see Eric Kuykendall standing on the side watching people wipe out (we made it through fine)
32. Swimming out and collecting beer from canoers, rafters, tubers who wiped out
33. Holding on to a rope behind the sailboat and being dragged through the water
34. Swimming with manatees
35. Snorkeling in Playa Del Carmen
36. Snorkeling in the Bahamas
37. Trying to windsurf on Benbrook Lake
38. Swimming in the Waund Pond at the farm
39. Playing in the water in Hot Springs, Arkansas
40. Boating on the lake at the foot of the Grand Tetons