Whitewater rafting. I had conjured up a lot of images in my mind pertaining to this event, but none of them matched the actual activity. I guess it’s probably best to list them off as I thought about them.
Fear: Sore muscles and exertion, as well as fear that I don’t have muscles or lung capacity for exertion.
Reality: I saw plenty of, let’s call them, “fans of food” lining up at the waiver table prior to the actual rafting. It turns out that most of the whitewater on this trip was contained to a bunch of short areas and that the rest of the trip was relatively leisurely floating. Don’t get me wrong, “a bunch” was a good many stretches of “better get paddling”, but it was just enough rest in between to get me excited for the next burst.
Fear: I would spend my entire time fishing Sam out of the river and scared to death of someone having to pull me out of the water.
Fact: If you paid attention to the instructions I eventually found that it would be tough to fall out and even if you did it seemed like they were pretty good at chasing people and rafts down.
Fear: One or all of us would not have fun or find it not enjoyable.
Fact: My family is a wide range of interests and abilities in so many things, but every one of us had a blast. Take a look at this picture…everyone is smiling.
Even our guide seems to be enjoying something.
Fear: The water would be freezing or the weather would be bad, and so on…
Fact: Our first raft trip went this way…We woke up at 6:30 am for an 8:30 am launch time. It was pouring rain and we knew from the locals that the creek temperature was 58 degrees. I think that 58 degrees is an agreed upon temperature that they all get together and decide to lie about. I can imagine this is done at a town hall meeting with voting and everything. I didn’t have a thermometer, but if I had to guess the water temp. was about 4 degrees. I know what you’re thinking, but this isn’t science class…it was 4 degrees. I have missing toes to prove it. Anyhow, by the time we got going the skies cleared and the weather was how you see it in the picture. Again…we had a blast. Here are a couple more pictures, but frankly, they all look the same.
We can’t figure out why Jen has her bored face on.
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