Extreme River-Rafting

We took my kids and sisters rafting down the Provo River twice. All the pictures are from the first rafting trip, but the extreme adventure was the second trip.

Grandpa and Dayton, blowing up the raft

Dayton said he was helping by twisting the ropes

Michelle and Daphne waited in the shade while the men worked;
Dayton and Daphne both loved peeing in the grass before rafting

Michelle, Daphne, and Dayton: ready with life jackets on!

Pushing off into the river

A view from the roadside above;
We were a snug fit in the raft, but it was a REALLY fun ride

Michelle and Dayton

Laura, Jenny, and Gary

Daphne munching on her Fruit Loops;
she loved going under bridges, and kept asking for more

Dayton squealed whenever we went over rapids

Paddling to our landing;
We actually missed the landing, but our friend Chuck jumped
into the water to grab us and pull us to shore; his jeans got soaked

Dayton with Spiderman and Mommy's glasses,
being silly on the car-ride home

The second rafting trip we split into two rafts so we could all be more comfortable. The problem with this- we only have one Dad (ie- a pro at steering the raft). So one raft had Gary, Jenny, and Dayton. The other had Michelle, Laura, and Daphne. Can you guess which raft ended up flipping?! Yes, the all-girls raft.

We ran into the support of a bridge and the current flipped our raft. The water was deep and COLD. Laura and I both remember coming up to the surface with the raft over us, so we had to maneuver around it. I immediately searched for Daphne and found her floating perfectly on her back in the water. I'm SO, SO thankful for life-jackets. I grabbed her and I was able to feel the rocky bottom with my feet, so we walked over to the side of the river, gasping for breath because of the cold water. A group of people on intertubes was resting there, and I put Daphne in one of their intertubes. Then the shock and cold factor wore off, so Daphne started crying; she only cried for about a minute.

A lady there caught Daphne's sandal that had fallen off and gave it back to us. My Dad was ahead of us, and he was able to catch our ores and raft; the camera was safely tucked inside a pouch in the raft, and it survived the crash. Laura and I both lost our flip-flops, and Laura lost her sunglasses (my sunglasses stayed on my head during swimming somehow). Two guys in intertubes raced downstream to catch all of our seat cushions, and they met up with us about 5 minutes later. Toward the end of the trip, my Dad actually retrieved both of Laura's flip-flops floating in the middle of the river! So in the end, our only casualties were my very cheap/old flip-flops, and Laura's cheap sunglasses. Not bad! Daphne told Laura and I that she did NOT want to go under any more bridges.

Flipping was an adrenaline rush, but not the exciting roller-coaster kind of adrenaline; it was survival-mode adrenaline. My instant concern was Daphne. When she was safe, I worried about catching our raft. When the raft was safe, I worried about our camera. I'm so glad we all had life-jackets on. I'm glad my Dad was there to help us. I'm also very grateful to all the nice people who helped rescue us and our belongings.

Daphne told people all about the trip for days. She said she fell into the water and went swimming. She also kept saying that she lost her shoe. Dayton said it was funny when we fell into the water- he didn't understand the situation.