Whitewater rafting adventures!
To see Danny's account of the same events (we were in the same boat) check out his webpage: http://www.geocities.com/dannyo107
Friday night began with a Prayer and Praise night at my church. Great night of worship and lifting up our voices and hearts to God... had the chance to pray for our missionaries, and also for our neighborhood. I walked with the senior boys through the apartment complex next door to our sanctuary and just prayed for the people in each unit - was very cool.
Afterwards made the drive up to Richmond and stayed up till midnight with Danny and Cal watching the World Cup... if you ever watch the WC on the Spanish channel... you'll notice that whenever someone scores a goal... a spaceship in the shape of a manta ray swoops in at the scoreboard in the upper left corner of the screen and shoots the scoreboard to add a digit to the score. It's quite amusing and I wasn't sure what I had seen until I confirmed it with the other two... heheh. We finally forced ourselves to sleep at midnight because...
... we had to wake up at 3:30 in order to make the drive out to Sacramento so that we could begin rafting just after sunrise. There haven't been too many times where I've watched the sun rise as part of my day, occasionally I've seen the sun rise before going to bed...
My buddy Danny did a pretty good job on his recap (see the URL above, click on "The Messy Column") so I'll just fill in on details...
- after finally getting to the river (van rides always seem longer when you're drifting in and out of consciousness), we got suited up with vests and helmets, and split into groups of 6 per boat (with one guide per). I was on a boat with Danny, the bachelor'o'the'day Andy, his bro Pete, and two of their buddies. Our guide's name was Max... big beefy guy, formerly from the army, with a fondness for lame jokes and keeping up the charade that this was his first time out on the river.
- the techniques of rafting weren't as difficult as I'd thought they were going to be because the guide did the hard work of guiding us around rocks, shallow sections, getting us unstuck, etc... basically we were just propulsion. Forward, backward, right turn, left turn... as long as we paddled in unison we were cool.
- in rafting you actually sit on the outside tube of the boat and brace yourself with your legs against the inner lining and the pylons bracing the bottom of the boat. I think I may have braced myself too hard because even though I didn't fall out involuntarily once, I realized later in the day that I had rubbed off a fair amount of my leg hair.
- our trip down the middle fork of the American river consisted of class 3 and 4 rapids. Class 3 are pretty fast, but not as many obstacles... you'll definitely get wet but you probably won't die. Class 4 on the other hand... rapids are fast, lots of obstacles, and lots of outcroppings just ripe for you to bash your head into if you don't slow the boat effectively, hence helmets. Danny mentions one class 4 where we actually slammed into the wall, and all of us in the back had to duck in order not to get a good knock on the noggin.
- in one more mild rapid, we were given the option to climb out of the raft and swim through it... I did and immediately regretted it because I belatedly realized I was wearing contacts. So I did my darndest to swim, keep my head above water, keep my eyes slitted so my contacts wouldn't fall out and yet I could still see...
- at another rapid, known as "Parallel Parking" because it involves following a route down sideways and then immediately turning and slowing down to avoid the far wall, we didn't backpaddle fast enough and found ourselves caught up against the side of the canyon. In order to get off this wall, everyone in the raft climbs to the high side so that the bottom side has enough buoyancy to begin floating again. Unfortunately, when we flopped back into the water we lost 3 of our rafters... and we had a few more rapids to go through. So myself and the other remaining rafters were paddling like mad to prevent from being pushed farther downstream while we looked on, scared for the guys who had fallen out and were going over rapids with just life vests on... fortunately none of them got banged up... and yeah, it was kind of dangerous... but looking back, it was more fun when we had drama like people falling out that we needed to rescue and the like... heh.
- all in all, rafting was a lot of fun. Some of the parts where you're coasting on smooth water, you have to keep yourself occupied with water wars against other boats (our guide's military training came in handy for ship-to-ship combat maneuvers), or otherwise just converse with boat mates. Pretty chill day, along with the exhiliration of speed and riding out the river... because the river is a lot stronger than you are.
We finished the day at Fuddruckers where I had an ostrich burger. It tastes pretty darn good, and it's a lot healthier than red meat. I think In'N'Out should start selling ostrich burgers. I got home at midnight and collapsed into bed after a 20.5 hour day.
To see Danny's account of the same events (we were in the same boat) check out his webpage: http://www.geocities.com/dannyo107
Friday night began with a Prayer and Praise night at my church. Great night of worship and lifting up our voices and hearts to God... had the chance to pray for our missionaries, and also for our neighborhood. I walked with the senior boys through the apartment complex next door to our sanctuary and just prayed for the people in each unit - was very cool.
Afterwards made the drive up to Richmond and stayed up till midnight with Danny and Cal watching the World Cup... if you ever watch the WC on the Spanish channel... you'll notice that whenever someone scores a goal... a spaceship in the shape of a manta ray swoops in at the scoreboard in the upper left corner of the screen and shoots the scoreboard to add a digit to the score. It's quite amusing and I wasn't sure what I had seen until I confirmed it with the other two... heheh. We finally forced ourselves to sleep at midnight because...
... we had to wake up at 3:30 in order to make the drive out to Sacramento so that we could begin rafting just after sunrise. There haven't been too many times where I've watched the sun rise as part of my day, occasionally I've seen the sun rise before going to bed...
My buddy Danny did a pretty good job on his recap (see the URL above, click on "The Messy Column") so I'll just fill in on details...
- after finally getting to the river (van rides always seem longer when you're drifting in and out of consciousness), we got suited up with vests and helmets, and split into groups of 6 per boat (with one guide per). I was on a boat with Danny, the bachelor'o'the'day Andy, his bro Pete, and two of their buddies. Our guide's name was Max... big beefy guy, formerly from the army, with a fondness for lame jokes and keeping up the charade that this was his first time out on the river.
- the techniques of rafting weren't as difficult as I'd thought they were going to be because the guide did the hard work of guiding us around rocks, shallow sections, getting us unstuck, etc... basically we were just propulsion. Forward, backward, right turn, left turn... as long as we paddled in unison we were cool.
- in rafting you actually sit on the outside tube of the boat and brace yourself with your legs against the inner lining and the pylons bracing the bottom of the boat. I think I may have braced myself too hard because even though I didn't fall out involuntarily once, I realized later in the day that I had rubbed off a fair amount of my leg hair.
- our trip down the middle fork of the American river consisted of class 3 and 4 rapids. Class 3 are pretty fast, but not as many obstacles... you'll definitely get wet but you probably won't die. Class 4 on the other hand... rapids are fast, lots of obstacles, and lots of outcroppings just ripe for you to bash your head into if you don't slow the boat effectively, hence helmets. Danny mentions one class 4 where we actually slammed into the wall, and all of us in the back had to duck in order not to get a good knock on the noggin.
- in one more mild rapid, we were given the option to climb out of the raft and swim through it... I did and immediately regretted it because I belatedly realized I was wearing contacts. So I did my darndest to swim, keep my head above water, keep my eyes slitted so my contacts wouldn't fall out and yet I could still see...
- at another rapid, known as "Parallel Parking" because it involves following a route down sideways and then immediately turning and slowing down to avoid the far wall, we didn't backpaddle fast enough and found ourselves caught up against the side of the canyon. In order to get off this wall, everyone in the raft climbs to the high side so that the bottom side has enough buoyancy to begin floating again. Unfortunately, when we flopped back into the water we lost 3 of our rafters... and we had a few more rapids to go through. So myself and the other remaining rafters were paddling like mad to prevent from being pushed farther downstream while we looked on, scared for the guys who had fallen out and were going over rapids with just life vests on... fortunately none of them got banged up... and yeah, it was kind of dangerous... but looking back, it was more fun when we had drama like people falling out that we needed to rescue and the like... heh.
- all in all, rafting was a lot of fun. Some of the parts where you're coasting on smooth water, you have to keep yourself occupied with water wars against other boats (our guide's military training came in handy for ship-to-ship combat maneuvers), or otherwise just converse with boat mates. Pretty chill day, along with the exhiliration of speed and riding out the river... because the river is a lot stronger than you are.
We finished the day at Fuddruckers where I had an ostrich burger. It tastes pretty darn good, and it's a lot healthier than red meat. I think In'N'Out should start selling ostrich burgers. I got home at midnight and collapsed into bed after a 20.5 hour day.
posted by Bob at
6:15 PM
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