Saturday 6/31

Today we floated down the river. my butt still hurts. I was thankfully a bit more prepared this time. and thanks to bigJ I now had my own personal lil raft. our friend cloo was supposed to come today but ended up having to take care of something with his boy so that meant the only raft we had ever used was now out of the picture. A and SB's raft would definitely only hold them. We had a tube floatie from last week but apparently we left it in cloo's car. so we head to Big5 to get more tubes and come out with a 2 person raft instead. I would end up using bigJ's one person raft. He was going to ride with C and help her not drown since shes scared of water and all.
we make it out of the house like an hour after we originally planned but thats fine. drop off one car and ride to the set off point. SB brought a pump that hooks to the car battery so the rafts are all inflated pretty fast.
C and A have life jackets on and we're not even by the water yet. silly silly. As we put our rafts in the water people start to make fun of my tiny one man raft. har har guys. I dont make things easier for myself when I get in because I am just so not full of grace. I let about a gallon of water in with me.
How the hell do I steer this thing? I cant sit up with my legs stretched out because this dingy raft is too short and my legs go up over the edge. my butt is in the middle of the raft so I try to scooch back and then more water comes in. awesome. I scoot forward and thats definitely a bad idea too. I give up. I stick the paddle in the water and start to make my way away from the launch site. only I dont actually do that. I very quickly realize that this raft doesnt steer well if youre not sitting in it right. and only one paddle makes me spin. thats fun. I havent even barely gotten into the river and Im already bumping into people. thats nice.
finally we're all on the water and I think I kinda know what Im doing to make myself move. I cant decide if I would rather have someone take care of me so I could not have to think about things as much and let someone else make the decisions or if I prefer to just have to worry about myself and not have to try to pretend like I have everything under control.
Here comes the first "rapids". as a group we choose a side to stick to and down we go. this is way more comfortable in the raft as opposed to the chair thing I took last week. and having a paddle to steer with is so much nicer.
I sure wish I could figure out a better way to sit in this stupid thing. its already much better than last week. we hang out close to each other ion the calm spots and take the rapid on our own. well me on my own...I definitely felt a little lonely out there and wished I had someone to take charge in a rafting type situation.
Im doing my best to not hit rocks this time. I make sure Im not going to hit a wall or a tree (like last week). I remember this bend...theres a rock wall and I remember cloo had to use his feet to keep us from hitting this last week. I can see C and bigJ in front of me trying to keep themselves away from the wall. I prepare my feet and at the last minute realize its just not going to work so I stick my paddle out and suddenly Im spinning around and then I see another rock and then Im in the water. it's deep and thankfully I dont hit a rock. I come up for a second and realize I have to grab my raft before it floats away. I hop on it but it's upside down so I cant get in. why cant I get in? I gotta flip this over. I can hear bigJ yelling at me to see if Im ok.
I got this. I am ok. I flip the raft over and try to get in but thats totally not going to happen. so I float on top for a second before I realize I have to gert my paddle! my oar is running away. grab grab grab! bigJ says not to worry about it. eff that! its basically right there. swim swim get. I lost the bottle he gave me to use for getting the water out of my tiny dingy raft. too bad. I gotta get back in this thing. Ill just swim over to that wall and hop back in. swimming sure is hard in rapids while trying to also hold a raft and a paddle. I see a couple stairs in the wall a couple feet in front of me and decide to get myself over there. and then suddenly Im on stairs...in the water. this staircase goes way underwater. my whole body is shaking. why is my whole body shaking? my whole body?? I cant even figure out how to get in. finally I get back in. bigJ is asking if Im ok again. yes Im fine. Im fine damn it. ignore the shaky appendages. I can see my bottle floating ahead. Im totally gonna get it. thank god for calm water.
And then theres not calm water. floaty floaty. paddle paddle. OUCH! rock in my butt. Im pretty sure that instantly turned purple. I can actually feel it turn purple. wanna know what purple feels like? pain. thats what.
Another bend, another issue. This time we (me and A and SB) find the vortex in the water. we had to avoid the tree in the water! and then no matter how hard we paddled we barely moved. isnt that awesome. Somehow we finally got moving.
You know whats fun? spinning your one man raft in circles really fast. I did that a lot.
This day on the river was much more comfortable than last time. I do still have water in my ear from that flip though...