It is generally accepted within the adventure community that there are three types of fun:
Type 1 fun...something that sounds like fun when you're planning it, is fun while you're doing it, and provides some good conversation at the bar at the end of the day.
Type 2 fun...sounds like its going to be fun, but during the actual activity something goes wrong and it becomes decidedly not fun. This fun generally results in an story worth telling at least a dozen times.
Type 2 fun...sounds like its going to be fun, but during the actual activity something goes wrong and it becomes decidedly not fun. This fun generally results in an story worth telling at least a dozen times.
Type 3 fun...is only for the truly insane and probably shouldn't be considered fun at all. It doesn't sound like its going to be fun, and its absolutely miserable while you're doing it, but it makes the best stories and is by far the most fun to talk about.
Today I had an epic dose of type three fun.
For some reason, I decided at the beginning of this month that participating in the Polar Bear Plunge by jumping into the Chesapeake Bay in the middle of winter would be a good idea. I knew I was potentially setting myself up for some major type three fun, but I figured it might be useful to have a really cold moment to look back on when I'm sweating to death in Senegal. Of course this type of insanity cannot be suffered alone, so I convinced Erin that raising money for the Special Olympics was worth getting a bit chilly.
Little did I know the weather was going to dip into the teens and a nasty snowstorm was going to descend upon the DC Metro area on the exact day we were planning on submerging ourselves in the Chesapeake Bay. By the time we arrived at Sandy Point State Park we were engulfed in a full blown blizzard and the reality of our stupidity began to sink in. We arrived several hours early to beat the registration lines which gave us plenty of time to contemplate the pain we were about to endure. Terrified, we stood in the party tent next to the heater and watched what were possibly the last minutes of our lives tick away.
When one o'clock rolled around we knew it was now or never so we stripped off our sweats, donned our bathrobes and made a mad dash through the snow in the direction of the beach. Luckily the water was a comparitively "warm" 40 degrees so the actual plunge wasn't nearly as bad as the anticipation. Our feet suffered the most...instantly turning to lifeless bricks, which made it nearly impossible to walk. We hobbled to the changing/warming tents as fast as we could and squeezed our way all the way to the back and stood next to the heater to thaw our toes. It was only then that we realized we had mistakenly run into the mens tent and we were surrounded by hundreds of guys in various stages of undress. Needless to say be booked it out of there as fast as possible and headed back to the main tent to bundle back up.
A 25 mph slide/drive over un-plowed roads meant that our official post-plunge chai lattes at Ebenezers didn't come until a full 3 hours later. Of course by that point we had warmed up considerably and were starting to forget the agony of the experience.
Little did I know the weather was going to dip into the teens and a nasty snowstorm was going to descend upon the DC Metro area on the exact day we were planning on submerging ourselves in the Chesapeake Bay. By the time we arrived at Sandy Point State Park we were engulfed in a full blown blizzard and the reality of our stupidity began to sink in. We arrived several hours early to beat the registration lines which gave us plenty of time to contemplate the pain we were about to endure. Terrified, we stood in the party tent next to the heater and watched what were possibly the last minutes of our lives tick away.
When one o'clock rolled around we knew it was now or never so we stripped off our sweats, donned our bathrobes and made a mad dash through the snow in the direction of the beach. Luckily the water was a comparitively "warm" 40 degrees so the actual plunge wasn't nearly as bad as the anticipation. Our feet suffered the most...instantly turning to lifeless bricks, which made it nearly impossible to walk. We hobbled to the changing/warming tents as fast as we could and squeezed our way all the way to the back and stood next to the heater to thaw our toes. It was only then that we realized we had mistakenly run into the mens tent and we were surrounded by hundreds of guys in various stages of undress. Needless to say be booked it out of there as fast as possible and headed back to the main tent to bundle back up.
A 25 mph slide/drive over un-plowed roads meant that our official post-plunge chai lattes at Ebenezers didn't come until a full 3 hours later. Of course by that point we had warmed up considerably and were starting to forget the agony of the experience.
So, bottom line...I knew it wouldn't be fun...it wasn't really fun...but it makes a darn good chapter in my life story.
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