It had been raining on and off throughout the night, but the tiny drops would evaporate almost as soon as they fell, so we postponed putting on the fly since it was so hot. At 4:50 it seemed the rain was finally getting serious so we got up to put the fly on, but alas it only lasted fifteen minutes or so. It really wasn’t such a loss of sleep after all though as Scott and I struggled to sleep with the hot temps all night. The clouds acted as a blanket keeping in most of the almost one hundred degree day temp. So when Scott’ alarm went off at 6:30 we were already awake. We were not quite as boisterous as the guides we met at 8:30, but the rapids and slightly chilly water helped with waking us up the rest of the way.
We spent the day white water rafting along the Green River in Dinosaur National Park with Adrift Adventures out of Jensen, UT.
Our guide’s name was Sean. Jacob was the troop leader for the day. John was also along as the guide of a third boat.
Sean had named our boat “The Chub”. We were with the Potter family from outside of Los Angeles. The family was thankfully very patient and helpful with the kids. Brooke and Cody had their first white water rafting adventure!
It is hard to tell, but above the main rainbow there was another rainbow. It was a beautiful way to start the day while eating our breakfast of French Toast. The chipmunks at our Green River Campground were pretty determined little critters. We kept chasing them away and moving the garbage pail, but this little guy got away with a piece of our French Toast. He stealthily snuck up on the garbage pail and then dove right in. It was his only piece. We stationed Cody on “Chipper” duty after that. He is really good at chasing animals.
Scott pointed while we were eating breakfast and said, “Hey, look! A payphone.”” Brooke responded with, “What’s a payphone?”
The kids rested their heads on me on our way to the put in. They look so peaceful and calm right there, but moments later on the trail they were both little jumping beans trying to knock each other down the steep trail. Before we began our rafting trip we were able to view the Petroglphys up close. The park service thinks they are about 1,000 years old. The main guide, Jacob, did his best to give information about what the Petroglyphs meant.
Cody was a little nervous about his first rafting trip. Brooke was all excitement until we pulled into the parking lot. She got out of the van and then went right back in and closed the door. We eventually coaxed her out and she quietly smiled the whole trip.
Cody spent most of the trip holding onto my arm, which made paddling interesting, but it made him feel better and I didn’t mind the extra snuggle time. Being close to me also helped him keep both of his feet wedged into the boat while he had one hand under a river strap. We stopped at a beach around 12:30 to eat lunch. The kids were itching to scramble up the rocks and play in the sand.
For lunch we had a tortilla wrapped in a salad, cheese, salsa, sour cream, black beans, refried beans, and crunched up tortilla chips on top. John did a great job of explaining how the tortilla represented the tectonic plates, the refried beans were the soil, the salad represented vegetation, the black beans represented what animals left behind after they ate the vegetation, and John put A LOT of black beans on the burrito he made. After that I sort of lost track of what each item represented. I just couldn’t get over the about of black beans John used. :-) The salad consisted of: romaine lettuce, roma tomatoes, olives, cilantro, green onions, pineapple (sometimes they put in mandarin oranges instead), 1 can of green chiles, and taco seasoning on top. John, the guide to the left in the salad picture, said that our guide, (in the middle) Sean, forgot the most important ingredient: love. Scott got the recipe recording on video. It was cute. The river guides get to eat this same exact salad every single day for lunch. The guides were laughing and having a good time the whole time. They didn’t even give too many curious looks when our little munchkins got more than rambunctious.
[embed]http://youtu.be/wdg4haSCs30[/embed]
While our guides put together our lunch Cody, Brooke, and I worked on a sand castle with a moat. The largest rapids we hit were class three. Some of our favorite lingo Sean shared with us included when the water was “Captain crunching” and the JAMS (Just Ate Must Sleep). He also told us about an unnamed rapid a kid on a previous trip named “Grandma’s Rocking Chair”. Cody had a case of the JAMS after lunch and literally fell asleep sitting up in the “Chub” leaning his head on my shoulder. No fear, he was still holding on the whole time. We woke him up just before the rapids. Sean also taught us how to do fist bump snail version.
Right before we headed off the river we were able to see big horned sheep eating on the river bank.
The kids’ first whitewater rafting trip was a success! Sean (our guide) was a little worried about the pressure of making sure a whitewater enthusiast’s (Scott) kid’s enjoyed their first trip and potentially will go on to enjoy future trips. No fear Sean, the kids had a fantastic first trip!
After the amazing trip we climbed back into the van and headed back to Adrift Adventures. We said goodbye to our guide and headed down the road to Moab.
We were just on the phone with Aunty Tiffy and we are on a roller coaster road that she would love. Route 128 in Utah has some “fun” rolling hills at high speeds. I put fun in quotes because they are not so fun for some of us who occasionally get motion sick, especially on roads with signs like this:
Moab – Hittle Bottom Campground
We arrived at the campground around 7:15. After a delicious dinner of cheeseburgers and green beans we headed to the Colorado River that ran along the campground to play in the water.
