Adventures on the Water Front!

Bekah and I woke up this morning to the sound of thunderstorms.  On this, the very first rainy day of our trip, what was on our itinerary?  Oh, you know, just white water rafting ;) There’s no way the rain was going to keep us inside though! 

First things first though, we walked down to a little restaurant and got huckleberry pancakes for breakfast.  They were DELICIOUS!  To bad huckleberries only grow in this area.  I would totally get Hope to plant some huckleberry bushes on campus.  I think they would become an overnight sensation!

It was time to walk over the rafting place shortly after breakfast, and by this time the rain had lessoned from a torrential downpour to a… I don’t know a slightly less aggressive monsoon.  ;)

We got down there and the rafts were still running (because there had only been thunder and no lightning, of course!) 

We got suited up and hopped on the bus that took us to the drop site.  I was pretty excited by this point because I’ve gone rafting once before and loved it.  Last time was in Colorado though and the rapids were only class 1 with one class 3, so needless to say, I was excited for something just a tad more intense!  These rapids were mostly class 3 so I was like ok, this should be pretty good!

It helped that our guide, Mitch, was super outgoing and the other people in our boat were a family vacationing from Connecticut.  It was so easy to get comfortable with everyone and just be silly. 

I was continually surprised by how few strokes we had to take before each rest though.  We would hear “All forward!” and after two strokes I would be totally ready to dig in and Mitch would call for us to rest.  I was like, I would rest but I haven’t started working yet!  It was nice that everyone was going all out though!  It gave us more time to joke around :D

As we got close to the rapids by the photographer, we decided to go Rock Band for the photo.  Unfortunately we all chose to turn our paddles into an electric guitars and then we pretty much failed at the presentation haha the picture ended up looking like we were all totally confused as to how we were supposed to hold the paddles in order to navigate the rapids, and we looked like we were about to go flying in a million different directions.  I would definitely give us an “A” for effort though!

There was a lot of calm water between the rapids where they would normally let people jump out of the raft and swim, but the water was way to cold for volunteers today!  It also didn’t help that it was still drizzling, so we decided to let fate decide who would take the plunge.  For this game, one person had to stand on the rim at the front of the boat, and the other person (me!) stood on the rim at the rear of the boat.  Then our crew would paddle and make the boat spin in fast circles and whoever lost their balance first would (theoretically) tumble off the boat and into the water.  Sounds simple enough, right?   I thought so, but apparently I can find the exception to every rule! I (of course) lost my balance first, but instead of falling backward into the water, I face planted into the middle of the boat.  I totally squashed Mitch’s supply bag, but I saved him the trouble of heaving me back into the raft, so I assume he accepted the tradeoff. ;)

We rode a few more rapids, got splashed with gallons of 48ish degree water, and made it to the next calm spot.  This time almost everyone decided that they were going to jump in the water—including Bekah!  I was surprised, but glad that she did it.  She was so funny because before she jumped ship she said, “Ohhhh it’s going to be so cold!” half a second later she plunged into the water, and a second after that she bobbed to the surface and all she said was, “yep…”  haha that was enough to say it all!

So there you have it, today was quite the adventure!  I think next time I want to go on class 4 or 5 rapids!  Let’s up the intensity!

Speaking of intense experiences, when Bekah and I got back to our hotel room we decided to wrap up in blankets, eat pizza, and watch the Lion King 1½!  Talk about intense huh? ;) 

Rebekah