Rafting the Colorado River

Tuesday morning we got up and went down to the outfitter that was to take us on a 13 mile rafting trip on the Colorado river. Neither of us have been white-water rafting before so we chose the beginner level trip with class I and II rapids. Nothing too intense. We got to the shop and there were families milling about. From stories I have heard, the strangers in your raft can make a big difference in the experience. And it makes sense as we were planning to spend 8 hours on a raft with these folks. My sister tara went rafting in New Zealand and ended up on a boat with a crew of uncoordinated Chinese people that didn’t speak the language – I think she got smacked in the head and arm with oars and then couldn’t tell them to cut it out or what had happened. So we assessed the worthiness of these families and tried to decide with whom to align ourselves. On the bus ride to the departure spot, we sat by some germans and they snapped some pictures for us and vice versa. So we chatted them up when we got off the bus and their leader (Wolfgang) recruited us to join their boat. So it was the six of them plus the two of us on our raft. The ride was great. The day was hot. The water was cold and high. Enough rapids to get the feel for whitewater and calm enough to jump out of the boat and float down the river. Our guide was a 110 lb girl who had brains but not enough brawn to make the raft go where she wanted it to. So we pretty much let the river take us.

Our german friends consisted of three adults (Dirk, Wolfgang and Marisol) and three children (Josefa, Lavinia, and Viros) - they were very entertaining. Wolfgang was a one-liner king. It turned out they had rented RV’s and were staying at the same campground as us. So Dirk asked us if we had heard what sounded like two large animals fighting in the middle of the night. Wolfgang then quickly offered an apology explaining that what we had heard might have been him on the toilet. Freaking classic.

After rafting we came back, grilled some dinner and then went and enjoyed the evening with our new friends.