May 7—Floating Down the River

I awoke this morning to Zack informing me that breakfast was ready. Reluctantly, I rolled out of bed, and groggily walked downstairs. Marty and Ed (her husband) had prepared a scrumptious breakfast of fruits, sausage, eggs, and French toast.

Not long after we began eating, we noticed that the clock struck 8am, signaling it was time to hit the road. Our main plan for today—whitewater rafting.

The drive was fairly uneventful along the way. We avoided construction for the most part, and because we weren’t near any major cities, the roads were mostly clear.

Along the last 40 miles of the drive, Zack and I decided to play the billboard game, both backwards and forwards. The first one was a close one, with Zack winning by two or three seconds. The second one I lost horribly, but I was driving, so I had an excuse (I’ll use that one anyways...). By the time I finally made it through the alphabet again, we were pulling up to the nearest city to our destination. After a wrong exit, an attempt to get back on the freeway that led us back the way we came, a u-turn up at the next exit, and an extra ten miles, we saw the sign on the side of the road for Wildwater Ltd.

Upon arriving, we found ourselves a parking spot, and did some final preparations for the trip (mainly leaving everything in the car we didn’t want to get wet, which sadly included our camera, so pictures are very few for today). While checking in for the trip, we were asked if we wanted to rent wetsuits. Zack asked the lady if we would need them, and she simply replied that the water was a cozy 48 degrees Fahrenheit today. Needless to say, we both rented wetsuits.


We waited a little for the last few people to trickle in, and were then directed over to the equipment shed to pick up a splash jacket, life preserver, and paddle. Once we were all geared up, we got onto the bus to be transported up to the top of the rapids. The drive was beautiful, driving through more of the extremely green forest.

Once up at the river, we went through a few basic safety precautions. The next step was to gather with our groups, so we waited until “The Sunderland Party” was called. We shared our raft with a couple (looking to be in their late twenties), our guide (an experienced rafter in her early 30’s) and her daughter (who was eight years old). We then proceeded to climb into our raft and set off down the river. Zack and I had chosen to sit up in the front, meaning that we would be the pacemakers for paddling throughout our ride.

On the river, the water was cool and clear. For the most part, we were able to see down to the bottom of the relatively shallow water, unless we were going over the class 2 rapids found sporadically throughout the trip. As we went along, our guide would occasionally call out commands such as “three forward” or “two back”, letting us know what action to take as we floated down the river. As well, at one point she had my side row back, while Zack’s side rowed forward, causing us to spin in circles while heading downstream (I think she was showing off her guide skills a little bit to the other rafts). In the calmer moments however, I was able to lean backwards over the side and reach down to glide my hand through the peaceful water.

Though the river was fairly calm for the most part with some bigger rapids (our guide let her eight year old daughter come, so it couldn’t have been that bad), our guide’s daughter was itching for a greater challenge. Throughout the ride, you could hear her saying things like, “We should all start paddling fast now, this is boring” and “You call that a rapid, river? That was nothing!” About halfway through the journey, she even purposefully jumped into the river to “test the waters” a little bit. Though the temperature did rise a bit as the day had gone on, it couldn’t have been much warmer then 50 in the river, brrr.

As we approached the last few rapids of our journey, we saw an orange construction sign hanging in a tree stating, “Bump”. Shortly after the marked rapids, we came around a bend to find the only class 3 rapids on our journey. After being guided into place, we went over the rapid, going over first a two foot drop closely followed by a three foot drop (it felt a lot bigger then it sounds in terms of distance). Sad;y. that was the last rapid of our trip, and we then paddled over to the landing, took the raft out of the water, got in the bus, and drove back to our car.

After changing into a fresh (dry) set of clothes, Zack and I ate another lunch of turkey sandwiches, and made the drive back to Marty and Ed’s house. Though I wasn’t feeling terribly tired, I must have been after going rafting, because I fell asleep on the drive (and stayed asleep for a few hours after we got back). Because I was asleep, I don’t know if anything interesting over this five hour span. I awoke to Zack telling me that it was time for dinner (oddly enough the same way I been awoken that morning).

We then enjoyed a dinner of fried chicken, mashed potatoes, baked beans, and corn on the cob. Finally, we watched the third of the Chronicles of Narnia with Ed and Marty, and got ready for bed.



Interesting Observations:
-If you didn’t know, I’m terrified of snakes. Like, Indiana Jones terrified. When our guide informed us not to touch the branches because a snake may fall out, I made sure to follow that instruction.
-Our guides daughter was even tougher then we originally thought. Turns out, when she was putting on her wetsuit right before we left, she got stung by a bee that had taken solace in her wetsuit. If her mom had never told us, we never would’ve noticed (she wasn’t at all affected by it).