The Blob!

I don't know you have ever been "Blobbed," but if you have, you know the exhilaration and fear that it causes! If not, the Blob is an aprox. 30 ft. X 8 ft. X 6 ft. inflated rubber pillow that floats in the water under a high dive. One person jumps from the high dive onto the Blob, and crawls to about four feet from the opposite side. Then another person jumps off the high dive and lands with as much force as they can create on the end under the high dive, forcing the first person up into the air and plunged into the water!

Camp Kulaqua has one floating in there constantly 72 degree water. We were at Camp Kulaqua last weekend.

Generally, it is a good idea to be able to swim and well, if you are going to venture on the Blob experience. Additionally, you should be Blobbed by someone aprox. your own size. Occassionally, some studly young man will coerce a petite young lady onto the Blob and send her shotting into the stratusphere to the grunting amusement of all his buddies...the young lady rarely gets talked in to a second ... flight!

Having set this all up, I must ask if you remember when you were seven years old and liked to hang out with the "big kids"?

Toby heard someone say something about going down to the Blob. Mind you, he doesn't not know what the Blob is or what it can do. His mother tried to explain it to him, which of course sounds like a LOT of fun, and it is...if you are watching! She then sent him to ask me--what had just finished packing the car for our drive home after a four-day weekend at Family Camp--about going Blobbing. I really wanted to get home, and I really didn't want to dig through the magnificantly pack car (van is about to blow it's transmission, so we--all 5 of us--loaded everthing into the car, including 3 bikes and made the 3 hour drive to Orlando before continuing the 2.5 hours onto Kulaqua) for his swimming suit, much less the idea of having to take wet clothes back in my car. But to be honest, I have really kind of been looking forward to the day my boys got to experience the Blob. So, I told him he had 5 minutes, if he didn't do it by then we were leaving and I dug out his bathing suit.

He stood and watched for a good while, there were only BIG kids there blobbing. I was sure he would see the insane stupidity of doing it himself and just vicariously enjoy the experience through the others there. I knew I could be in trouble when he decided to take a test run off the high dive adjacent to the Blob...then began running back to the do it again. Finally, kid closer to his size (within 20 lbs. probably) came and we asked if he would Blob Toby....

As you may guess, he wanted to do it again. This time however, he blobbed the kid who was close to his own size, which left a bigger kid (at least 80 lbs. larger) to Blob him. You can hear the life guard asking if I was the father and if "this was OK." What is a father suppose to say? It was his last Blob for the day!