Memorial Daze

Figuring that I should have more than one post this month, here is a post!

We are all coming hot off the heels of Memorial Day, and with that I need you to know I spent the weekend at the lake being absolutely gross and disgusting. It’s the American way. The lake is awesome because you have every excuse to not take a shower for days on end. “Why take a shower, I’m about to go jump in the lake!”

Within those days, I managed to ride our family’s Wave Blasters enough to absolutely destroy my hands. Those images don’t really do the damage justice, as the blisters are nice and oozy, but we will just say that next time I will be wearing gloves to eschew that problem.

I do have to lay out, right now, my absolute love for riding these silly machines; these “personal watercraft,” if you will. The next couple of sentences will sound like elitist crap, so bear with me. The two wave runners shown above are Yamaha Wave Blasters. These are not to be confused with sissy, pansy-ass Sea Doos, or other wanna-be wave runners that hold five people or what-have-you. Blasters can hold all of one (1) rider (save for a short lived Blaster 2 version), are light as hell, and honestly are the most fun to be had on the lake. Of this my opinion will never waver until Yamaha makes a new version of this exact set-up. It’s extremely unfortunate that the bigger, less fun watercraft “won out” in the end, because a new model of Blaster every year for the last two decades would be nice. “Two decades?!” Yeah, two decades. Our machines are 17 and 16 years old this year and are still more fun than anything out there. And you can take that to the bank.

With that said, I will have to digress some as my uncle brought his family’s new wave runner to the lake; the exact model escaping me at the moment. I think it was the FX Sho, though. Anyhow, although it was a HUGE machine, it was fun to ride simply for the fact that I got it going – according to its speedometer – 75mph. Unlike the Blasters, where the fun comes directly from jumping waves and getting some air with super tight control, the fun I had with this was outrunning boats. It’s an experience to pull up next to a boat as they are already going 40-50mph, then surpassing them like it was nothing. I suppose that’s what you get when you are riding something with a supercharged 210hp motor (my car only has a 205hp motor).

So now, as I sit, typing about wave runners and feeling the pain of blisters on my hands, I get to the part where I simply say thanks to all of the people currently serving, have served, and have passed in defense of our country. Without these people I wouldn’t even have the chance to pretend to be superior to others based on what lake vehicle I own.