Slammin' at Silverwood

It was around four in the morning on a Thursday when my dad woke me up. We were going to go to the lake. The plan was just me, him, and the new Polaris he had gotten a few weeks earlier. Getting up this early ensured that we would be one of the first people to launch off the dock. We packed up, left the house, and went for gas. After getting gas we started the drive through the mountains to the lake.

When we got to the lake, we waited in line for the ranger to give us a parking pass. My dad launched the Polaris and I waited by the dock while he parked the truck. Once he got on, we took off. We went all around the lake. We explored all the coves, looked at the swimming areas, and even got to see the damn up close. We had stopped a few times to get a better look at things on the shore. Eventually we had seen everything around the lake.

Instead of calling it a day and heading back to the dock we decided to see how fast we could go. This was the worst thing we could have done. We were speeding around doing turns and little jumps, not paying attention to the amount of people now on the water with us. As my dad turned us to head down the center of the lake, we slammed into the wake of two speed boats that were racing.

Our craft went up one way while my dad and I went down the opposite way. The craft smacked down, bounced, and then went drifting away. I was freaking out. I mean completely panicked. I have a huge fear of water where my feet cannot touch the bottom. It does not matter if it is a pool, river, or lake.

As I am splashing and flopping around, I hear my dad, “Hey! Hey! Calm down! Kristen!”

I managed to look in his direction. “You have a life jacket on, calm down,” he said, almost screaming at me.

At that moment I stopped moving. He was right. I was floating. We took a minute to find where the craft had floated off to. Once we spotted it, we swam carefully so as not to get hit by another craft. My dad climbed on first so that he could help me. The swimming to our craft had not hurt so I thought that I was fine. That was far from true.

Pain was all I could feel on the right side of my body and my thigh felt like someone had a blowtorch held to it. I told my dad and he said once we were at the truck, we would have a look, but he assured me it was just my nerves over reacting from being scared.

Once the craft was back on the trailer and we were at the truck in the parking lot my dad asked if it still hurt. I said yes as I walked over to him so that he could see if I was injured. The look on his face said it all, I was definitely hurt in some way. However, before he could say anything I looked at my thigh, I screamed and began to cry.

The reason my inner thigh felt like it was on fire is because I had gotten burned. The jet (or whatever the part that goes into the water was called) had come down on my thigh and in doing so it had burned the details into me. I had the shape of the jet as well as the writing that was on it. If I remember correctly, it was the make, model, and serial number. When I got home and looked in the mirror, I saw the whole side of my body where I had hit the water was bruised.

It was then that I learned if you hit water hard enough in the right way it feels like hitting cement and looks like the aftermath of a car accident. Spite getting hurt my dad and I had a great day together.