The Misadventures of Liz & Steve: The Great Cardboard Boat Regatta

Yes! Hallelujah! The weather is gorgeous!

That's right, Readers, we are back outside again!

The upside to our location in Southern Illinois is that we have an amazing amount of opportunities to take day trips and a lot of outdoor options as well. The downside to winter, though, is that there is absolutely no desire to travel and snow isn't nearly as appealing up close as it is through a window. But with wonderful weather, we had the opportunity to bring the summer in right.

While many don't consider it summer until the students get away from campus, today was to good of a day to let it pass. The mood has improved, the trees have bloomed, and the opportunities abound. Just a walk through campus leads to events. It isn't uncommon to pass an informal game of ultimate frisbee, our women's softball team playing, students fishing at the lake, book sales, etc.

Today, we checked out a tradition that SIUC has (and it was way bigger than we expected): The Great Cardboard Boat Regatta. I found out about it when one of my RAs asked if it would be possible to use the Hall Council room to build a boat. Needless to say, it lead to some questions. "Why are building a boat?" and "Why are you building it like that?" After a brief tutorial on how to use a tape measure, Jason constructed the boat you see below.

Liz and I had decided to check it out, and we invited Ellen along for the fun. None of us realized how big of a deal it really seems to be. This is a community-wide event and very family-friendly. It was great to see little kids from the community throwing water balloons at some of our college kids. It seems that the university really does have good relationships with the community.

We took pictures of some of the "competition," including The Banana Boat, The Water Weasel of Doom, The Short Bus, and The Yellow Submarine.

As far as Jason's maiden voyage on the "Summer Breeze", he had my grad, Chris Jones, at the helm.

As soon as the "Summer Breeze" hit the water, Jason struggled a bit to get in the boat (read this as foreshadowing...) , but off they went!
It seemed as if all was going well as they began to round the second buoy, except Jason seemed to be getting shorter.

And then... ...it was over. Similar to its ancestor, "The Titanic," the boat took on water gradually and then toppled. Fortunately, this was all too common (The Yellow Submarine didn't make it one paddle-length from the shore) and there was assistance. Today was a fantastic way to start the summer early and we look forward to what is to come. Summer concerts, weekend events, outdoor opportunities...this is going to be fantastic!