Wednesday morning our intrepid explorers were up earlier than usual and were at the Moab Adventure Center by 8AM for our river rafting trip. We had signed up for it the day before. We had picked a full-day trip that goes fourteen miles down the Colorado River. This was Kathy's first rafting trip, it was Chris' third.
We had figured out how to have everything they had recommended for the trip, although some others definitely didn't. We had bottles of water in special bags we made from lingerie bags (thanks to Dollar General!) and carbiners. We also found a “glasses restrainer” to hold on my glasses (Chris had one for his sunglasses) and bought some nice shoe laces to hold on our straw hats (we already had them). Our guide praised us for our resourcefulness and it all came in handy!
Despite the fact that we had not read Shannon's advice for sitting in the front of the raft, that is where we ended up! I hate to admit it, but I (Kathy) was the oldest on the raft. We were the only raft that had full dayers; the other rafts had AM or PM trips only. In addition to our entertaining and fun guide, Becky (history education major at BYU!), there were six other members of the crew.
Sarah was our international member and hails from Birmingham, England. She's a 19-year-old who is traveling around the States by herself, although she has visited some relatives while here. She still has three weeks to go and then will return to begin college in Leeds studying “New Media”.
Sophie works for a subsidiary of TripAdvisor.com called “
Virtual Tourist” and lives in the LA area, I believe. She is ½ Swiss and ½ Persian and didn't emigrate from Switzerland until she was eleven.
The other four were all the family of Michael and Jennifer, and sons Mark and Scott. Michael is head chef for all the restaurants in the Las Vegas MGM Grand! The boys were about 10 and 11. Mark, the eldest, really got into planning attacks on the other rafts!
The morning was fun and fairly relaxing. Chris and I discovered that sitting in the front means becoming wetter than anyone else usually! We lazed around occasionally and anyone that wanted to swim could for a while. Then there were “smile breaks” when someone “swam” and the water got a little warmer in their vicinity!
We stopped for a barbecue lunch at a resort ranch on the river; hot dogs and hamburgers with all the trimmings, three side dishes, chips, and cookies.
Shortly after lunch we started again. We encountered the biggest rapids of the day. And that's when Kathy went swimming! Not by choice....
Everything was going fine. We were paddling away when Becky told us to and stopping when she told us to. The raft was going up and down into large troughs between the waves. I (Kathy) had put both feet back in the raft (I'd been straddling the side with a foot in the water) because I thought it would be safer in the rapids because of rocks.
Well, we went down into one of the troughs and that's about the last thing I remember. I somehow lost my balance and fell overboard! Although I didn't realize it at the time, I guess my arm also hit Sophie behind me and she went overboard too!
Becky later said she thought we both did just what we should do. I was never really scared at all, even though the rapids were jostling us around quite a bit. I even opened my eyes under water like I usually do and looked for the raft. Becky had placed the raft sideways in front of us so it was merely a matter of swimming a few strokes to the raft.
Chris tried to pull me into the raft but I started telling him, “stop, it's choking me!” Actually, my hat was still hanging down my back from the chin tie and that was choking me, not the life jacket. They helped Sophie into the boat, Chris took my hat, and then he and Becky hauled me in. I hate to admit it was not my most graceful moment!
And the funniest thing about it all was that when it was over Becky said, “I can't believe you held on to the paddle the whole time!” I had. I told her that I had always tried to be frugal, so I wasn't going to let a piece of equipment go to waste! Actually it was all just a reflex to hold onto it.
Well, the excitement was over for me somewhat! The rest of the trip included several skirmishes with the other rafts and kayakers in which large amounts of water was either splashed or thrown at the opponents from large buckets. Once again Chris and I received most of that water in the front; from both the other teams and our own!
All in all, we had a good time and shared a day with congenial companions. Sophie and I agreed that it was nice to have a special story to tell about our day, too. Pictures of our rafting trip are included at
Moab Action Shots . Our raft is shown in photos 1-5 and 36-39. Look for the boat with people at the front with straw hats (you may recognize us!) Unfortunately, they didn't get Kathy's fall on film...
We returned to Moab around 4 PM and did some errands and got some ice cream. (OK, Kathy got some ice cream!) We then headed out to the campground at Dead Horse Point State Park. We were both pretty bushed. Kathy read a while sitting in the lawn chair and then moved to the camper and read/dozed/read/etc. until she actually “went to bed”.
Chris hiked to the rim of the canyon near the campground and took pictures. He then came back and decided to “take a nap” which turned into a four-hour nap. Then he had trouble going “to bed!”
The campground was nice in a stark sort of way and had electricity. They don't have showers though; all water in that area has to be hauled in. We liked the fact that it wasn't a commercial campground and “real campers” seemed to be the ones using it.
The stars were phenomenal that night! Since we were far from civilization there seemed to be thousands more than usual. It was really neat.
Enough for now. Hope everyone in Kansas (and all our fans worldwide-LOL) is doing well. Now get back to work!
We spent last night at Dead Horse Point campground. The campground is near the rim of a box canyon. Chris followed the wash from the campsite down to the rim. Though the rim looked close, it took Chris 30 to 40 minutes to get there. It was an interesting, but not spectacular view. On the way back Chris discovered a trail back to the campsite that was marked with short little rock cairns.
In another canyon we came across a tale of an Indian fight. One soldier and one blacksmith were killed.
We reached Capitol Reef National Park at about 3 pm. Capitol Reef is a hundred mile long land reef that blocked passage west. Its rock "waterfolds" also capture water and hold water creating an oasis of flowing streams and trees in the desert. The indians were here for hundreds of years as proven by irrigation ditches and petraglyphs.
