Photo by Joseph Lacerte.

This is an excerpt from a larger list, where I give various activities a Sober Fun rating of 1-10. Entries from this list are scattered throughout my website, or you can find that complete list HERE.

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Floating: Rating N/A

I have come to realize not everyone knows what this is, so I will explain it first. While not exclusively a Texas thing, I’ve been repeatedly told that floating also isn’t an everywhere thing; so here goes:

Floating starts with you driving to a designated dirt parking lot on the bank of a river (in Texas, the Guadalupe is probably the most famous, but personally, I prefer the San Marcos) and parking your car. You bring enough alcohol, food, weed, and cigarettes to last all day, and you make sure they are all stored in various types of waterproof containers. Then you rent a big round inner tube for yourself, and a smaller, cheaper, one (with a bottom) to float along next to you. It holds all your shit. Then you float slowly down the river alllllllllll day long, tied to all your friends, as you get progressively drunker, higher, and more sunburnt as the day drags on. Then when you are done, an old, decommissioned school bus (or some other type of party bus) takes you all back to your car, in the parking lot where you started. Now you can all drive your car drunkenly down old country dirt roads, until you get back to wherever you came from— most likely the highway.

This was possibly my absolute favorite thing to do drunk. It is basically a floating bar where you can simultaneously smoke, drink, get tan, be in the water and be out amongst nature, but all whilst also involving the forward movement of a journey, an adventure. It is fantastic. And for all those reasons, I cannot rate it, as I am reluctant to ever try it again now that I’m no longer drinking.

It’s not that I think I’ll be tempted to drink again, that’s not it at all. It’s that some things were special and wonderful WITH the drinking. Just because I’m not drinking anymore doesn’t mean I'm incapable of recognizing that not all drunk times were inherently bad. I think I’d rather some memories live on unsullied in my mind, rather than try to force them into being something new and different that they clearly are not.

Bottom line, floating a river with friends and alcohol is an undeniably great time. Whether it still can be sober, too, I may never know. So it gets a SF rating of N/A.