Creating Memories

In yesterday's post about a trip to Athens, Texas with the youth group I said...

I've got a fish tale (or two) to tell, a tail of another kind to mention and stories about automotive mishaps with happy endings.

Having previously described how our day began with the first of two situations involving our transportation, I will now proceed to illuminate the rest of our adventurous day.

I have found three things I enjoy in Athens, Texas: one, a good disc golf course at the Cain Center; two, Athens Scuba Park; and three, the Texas Freshwater Fisheries Center. The disc golf course, which I have played several times before, was not on our itinerary for this day as we split our time instead between the other two attractions. We spent our day first on land and then in the water.

The lure of going to the Texas Freshwater Fisheries Center was twofold. A stocked pond on the premises with free fishing pole rentals first baited us to pay the center a visit, but what really got us hooked on going there was to see the world record 121.5 pound catfish on display in one of their tanks. Caught earlier this year off a bank of Lake Texhoma on a 20-lb. test line, this fish is a behemoth! Although not as long as I might have thought, the catfish is very large and massive in girth. Having heard plenty of big fish stories told before, I finally got to see one that didn't get away. It was truly a sight to behold. And while we were there I caught a fish of my own in the pond. It didn't break any records, but nonetheless I did catch a fish.

After watching fish swim around for a while we were ready to go for a swim ourselves. That's when we headed over to Athens Scuba Park for a dip in the water. This place is incredible. It's an old quarry filled with spring water to a depth of about 35 feet that allows exceptionally clear underwater visibility. In other words, it's the perfect environment for snorkeling and scuba diving. And to complement the great underwater visibility are over 30 objects resting below the water's surface for divers to discover. In our time at the park we snorkeled, swam, and kayaked. Unfortunately, with all the recent rains the visibility while we were there was only about 10 feet, so to dive underwater towards the bottom while holding your breath and suddenly see a shape in the darkness below was fairly unnerving for most of the youth. Those of us who were brave enough to dive down under the water encountered two boats and an awesome, eerie-looking submerged Lockheed C 140 Jetstar. The airplane's tail was barely visible from the surface but you could dive down along the tail's edge and follow it to where it met the fuselage before needing to return to the surface again to breathe. Personally, I can't wait to return there with better visibilty and scuba gear.

I'd like to say that our "fun" ended there and the return trip was uneventful, but as one of my sponsors said on the way home after what happened next, "It's all about creating memories." Well, no one's going to forget how we ran out of gas just 1/4 mile from the gas station, coasting for as far as we could until all the youth got out to push the van the remainder of the way. I'm sure it was a funny sight to see and there was plenty of laughter coming from those pushing at the rear of the vehicle as we slowly rolled into the pumps. As if we hadn't created enough memories that day, we now had one more thing to remember this trip by.

And it makes me smile to recall it even now.