An ode to the tube …

Viewing life through the buoyant doughnut hole

by Jaime Becktel

In 1869, one-armed Civil War veteran Major John Wesley Powell departed Wyoming on an expedition down the Green and Colorado rivers. Leading a group of nine men in four boats, Powell would be one of only six survivors at the end of the thousand-mile, three-month adventure along the uncharted rivers of the West. Emerging from the cavernous fathoms of the Grand Canyon near the mouth of the Virgin River in Nevada, the six skeletal survivors escaped hardships one can only imagine in the sparse desolation of the desert. Ninety days of starvation, isolation, deadly rapids, waterfalls, rock falls and the endless delirium of not knowing when the river would finally cough them out. An original pioneer of Western expansion and conquest, Powell would later relay his adventures in the renowned autobiographical tale, The Exploration of the Colorado River and its Canyons, first published in 1875.

One-hundred-and-forty-five years after the Civil War hero made his odyssey through the otherworldly depths of the Grand, a troop of five friends kick off on a far less dangerous expedition down the Animas on Sat., Aug. 2, 2014. Cody Reinheimer, Lianne Nicholson, their 9-year-old daughter Kiva, and Mary Hess sport the superior watercraft of Intex River Run “I” tubes. I opt for a more archaic approach: $5 truck tube from Cox Conoco in Mancos … perfectly inflated for rock-shock absorption. With a good buzz and a smile we launch into the micro-rapids for a day of pleasant times on the chocolate milk River of Lost Souls.

There’s something so nostalgic about a day in the tube. Suddenly, you’re a kid again on a slow-motion ride through a river-themed amusement park. Sidling up to the bank you behold a Hobbit-ish overhang of vines and moss. Peeping forth from a soggy burrow beneath a grandmother cottonwood you glimpse the jutting snouts of Toad, Mole, Ratty and Badger from Kenneth Grahame’s 1908 children’s classic, The Wind in the Willows. You are Huckleberry Finn, adrift on a Mississippi raft, Stuart Little in a toy boat and Thumbelina in a walnut shell. Life becomes miniaturized when viewed from your own buoyant doughnut.

 Celtic knots braid with stone and root at the base of gnarled trees and on one distant boulder, an emerald-capped mallard stands in a one-legged asana. The journey of the tube is perfectly slow. There’s nothing to do but observe and feel the life lessons of the river carrying you down, down, down. 

In India, the river Ganges is worshipped as the aqueous personification of the goddess Ganga. Bathing in her waters is believed to balm the soul of its sins and facilitate a state of Moksha, liberation from the endless cycle of life and death. Rivers are sacred the world over, from the Nile to the Amazon, the Yangtze to the Mississippi – each tributary of life-giving water deeply honored by its people. In the freshly risen waters of the Animas you’ll find slick rainbows of fish and backwards-shooting crawdaddys. Swallows zip beneath bridge arches and stately balds keep watch from decrepit old snags. At the heart of this riparian neighborhood, our river flows on with her metaphors, her fables and koans as the cumulous clouds of a summer sky reflect the mirrored ripples of her gentle stretch.

After an interlude of dreaminess, a swift bounce down the organ-shocking “Library Rapid” brings our small crew of tubers to what Lianne calls “South Beach;” a private bank attached to the Island Cove Mobile Home Park where she lives with her sweet family of three. I’m convinced that Island Cove is the most magical pocket of Durango, with it’s private island, quiet grove of cottonwoods and what Cody refers to as “The Fawn Nursery,” where spotted little ones prance between patches of bright green lawn.

We post up on the sand and like flowers rotate our faces to the warmth of the sun. Tubes of teen-agers squeal by alongside rafts of happy tourists while helmeted kayakers blaze on to greater adventures downstream. On one heavily populated barge of youth, shiny bodies in bikinis and board shorts emit sonar frequencies of flirtation into the sky.

Families picnic along the banks, having staked their claim like conquistadors with beach towels, coolers and Coppertone-slathered babies. A crazy guy jumps from a bridge into water that’s far too shallow, somehow emerging with femurs intact. Now and again the whistle and choke of the train makes its way down the tracks and humans come face to face with humans, like gorillas at the zoo waving to chimps in an adjacent exhibit.

A recently married couple pulls up in what can only be described as a double tube of pure potential, the Intex River Run “II.” With a small cooler in the center and His & Hers cup holders, what’s not to like as you face the river and life together, side by side? I make a mental note to buy stock in Intex and to make the River Run II my wedding gift of choice for all engaged friends. Its remarkable engineering has me pondering possible modifications to my own humble watercraft – the truck tube. Perhaps knitting a tubular Thneed or affixing a coozie to its starboard side might enhance its functionality and enjoyment quota. I imagine a flippy-kicky board attached to the back where I can affix a mini Playmate cooler and I smile at the thought of an orange dune buggy flag, fluttering behind me in triumph.

The possibilities for tube couture are endless, and entirely unnecessary. Really, in the end, all you need is a tube. One guy rigged up a double-dutch wonder with two rainbow-striped baby tubes … one for his torso, one for his legs. Wearing a strange, petal-like sunhat we watch as he takes a wrong turn into the tailbone hammering shallows. “Butts up!” we call out as we watch him struggle, and with each impact of rock-on-spine we “Ooooh!” and “Owwww!” along with him until he jostles back into the current.

If you’re a tuber, you know what I’m talking about: the simple glory of being still while flowing. You understand the Zen of the tube. It’s dorky, it’s fun, and minus the $5 to $20 purchase of your tubular chariot … it’s free.