Big Splash

Can I just tell you how AMAZING it is to actually whitewater raft in REAL rapids?!

Crazy deal though... you slather yourself up with sunscreen, and then hope that you can A.) hold onto the paddle, and B.) not slither right out of the raft! It seriously felt like I was butter in a pan. But the whole experience was great. I even was one of the gutsy ones that jumped out once or twice just to be in the rapids.. ok, so I'm slightly crazy... and YOU thought the whole point was to try and stay IN the boat didn't you?! haha... obviously not in my case! yeah, those of you that really know me know that that is just what is to be expected of me.

The rapids themselves were only about a 3-4 on the 1-6 scale, so not so intense, but fun non-the-less.... I think I would have preferred a bit more of an intense ride, but it was such a senic ride, I probably would have missed a lot of that if it would have been more crazy. We were on approximately an 11 mile stretch of the Arkansas river. Our river guides were amazing! Funny, great at their job of guiding the raft, and they even pointed out little interesting facts about things we were passing... oh, and gave us the most fun names of the different rapids we were going through.... here are some examples-- "The Widow Maker", "The Meat Grinder", "The Grave yard", "The Pin-ball Machine", "The Falling Staircase", "zoom flume", "Bigdrop"... yeah... GRRRREEEAAT names..... makes you feel like you are going to be in way over your head, er, but not really :) The names just made me smile.

So yeah.. I wish I had rivers like this back in Indiana... this would have been a GREAT summer job....