The Goldfish's Logbook

Star and I headed out together, arriving at Cat’s at 1 pm. We sat around her apartment (it nearly burst at the seams with all our cosplay awesomeness) for about 1.5 hours as we waited for everyone to show up. A few new people showed up along with the usual main corps of ACDFers. I think about a dozen people showed up, which was a good turn-out.
After about another hour of parking-lot and innertube confusion at the river, we FINALLY got into the water. Almost all of us had tubes so we formed a big cosplay raft of sorts and drifted downriver. It was funny whenever the current swept our group under a bridge. Almost always someone would crash into the piers, resulting in much panicking and hoopla. I wasn’t content to just lazily lie in the water all day (I can do that in my bathtub) so my tube was constantly circling the main ACDF flotilla. I probably wasn’t acting my age out there. I was the only one with a squirt gun, I often left my tube for swimming and shark attacks, and with other kids like CC and MoB egging me on, I was all sorts of hyper. Luckily I didn’t have any goggles or snorkel, otherwise I would’ve been up to some real mischief.
So yeah, floating was really lots of fun. Although there were lots of other people, it didn’t seem crowded on the water. The banks were green and lush, providing us both scenery and shade. The weather was great; sunny enough that the water was the right place to be, but not OMG-I’m-gonna-burst-into-flame hot. The only detractor was the "tentacle-rape" weeds (as they came to be called) growing in the water, which discouraged swimming for most of the float. After about an hour of floating we reached the park at the end. Most of the people decided to walk back and float again, but Star and I had the charcoal and other important stuff needed to start the picnic, so we had to go.
Like the river, the park was packed, but by the time we got there some other ACDFers had already occupied a table and grill. Way to go, guys! Our table was a small island of anime soundtrack music surrounded by Tejano. We got things fired up and the rest of our navy soon showed up. We had to wait for the veggie-burgers to cook before us carnivores could eat, lest we contaminate the utensils (we could’ve wrapped the spatula with foil! ARGH!) This sort of potluck-ish dinner was odd. We had stuff like baby-bananas, donuts, and curry along with the typical hot dogs, hamburgers, and watermelon fare. It was only when the last bun was being eaten that I noticed that we were running out of hamburger buns (which I was responsible for). So I made a tire-squealing dash to the nearest gas station only to find regular bread. But when I got back I was glad to see the people had been smart enough to MacGuyver the hotdog buns to fit the burgers.
After dinner we horsed around and talked. I mostly just continued to orbit the group and take pictures, though I did get drawn into some silliness. I probably went too far when I started putting watermelon down people’s shorts. And being on the receiving end of some wrestling holds helped me decide to leave the horseplay to the younger kids. It soon grew dark after that, signaling the end of the ACDF Float.