Weekend Fun

On Sunday Mary, Jacob, Ariele and headed down to the white salmon river in southern washington for a morning of white water rafting. It was my third time rafting, but it's always a lot of fun. Mary and Jacob had never been before and I hope they enjoyed it. We got lucky and it was only the four of us in our raft, and we had a great guide. The water was very cold, but paddling and a wet suit kept me warm and the river was beautiful. The highlight of our trip happened just after the start in some rapids called corkscrew. Jacob and I were in the front of the raft and Ariele and Mary were in the row behind us. Everything seemed to happen in slow motion as I watched the dip in the water come up and then a shock as I was chest deep as the raft went in. The raft came back out of the water and I was still sitting on the side of the raft, but leaning out on my back. I sat up and turned around and saw that our guide and I were the only ones who had not been thrown out. Our guide came up next to me and started to pull Jacob back in. I tried to help but realized I wasn't needed, so I went around him and pulled Ariele in. Her paddle got stuck on something and by the time she was in, the guide had pulled Mary back in, and we rushed back to our spots and grabbed paddle to negotiate the rest of that section of rapids. Someone's paddle (we don't know whose) fell out of the boat, so Mary gave me hers and in another minutes we were out and pulled to the side of the river. Another raft grapped our paddle, and we rested a few minutes before continuing our trip. In all, we travelled nine miles on the river in about three hours.

Check back later to see the pictures.