River rafting...it's harder than it looks!

We spent the day today river rafting with the Boy Scout troop.  Well, technically, we spent 2 hours driving there, an hour getting PFD's, helmets, oars, the safety briefing, holding our breath as we used the port-o-potties, a group photo (which took a bit...there were 42 of us!) and then split into groups and sent to our rafts.  We then spent close to 2 hours on the river, followed by 2 hours of driving home!

Since we booked late in the season, the river was low, but it was perfect for all of us who had never rafted before to get a good feel for it.  We maneuvered our way through several rapids.....one named the 'birth canal'......and no one fell out of our raft!  Gregory and Jacob went in different rafts with some of their scouting buddies and our raft was me, Bill, my dad, Eric and Catalena.  There actually was a whole lot of 'guiding' done by our guide as we made our way past different sections that varied in depth.  There was the 'right side back', 'left side forward', the 'all forward', the 'all back', the 'take a break' and of course the 'you are free to splash those in the raft approaching' calls!!

I'm sure in the morning my arms are going to hurt.  They haven't worked that hard since I had to carry two 20 lb babies around.  At the same time.  Good to know the muscles haven't atrophied!  Bill and the boys left immediately after the rafting trip to make their way to Boy Scout camp.  They have got to be tired, and the opening camp fire didn't start until 8:30pm!  Bill is going to stay with them for 2 days and help the group out as they get everyone to their designated merit badge work stations each day.  It is quite amazing how much they pack into one week of scout camp.  Really.  Too bad we've heard that the food is 'eh'.

All the rafting pictures are on the camera the boys took to camp, so no proof of our adventure until next Saturday.  And if I don't get a new hard drive installed on my computer pretty quick, those pictures will be living on the memory card!  I am seriously out of disk space!