Well we started to float down the river and it didn’t take long before I realized I was in trouble. First of all, I helped Maria get into her tube, Levi and Annemarie were getting into their tubes. I started to get into my tube, but couldn’t quite get it right and fell into the water. My flip flops (I had been told they would suffice, water shoes not needed) fell off, so then I was standing on the rocks and they really hurt. So I slipped and tripped multiple times scraping myself on the rocks. Meanwhile Maria is screaming because she is scared (we were supposed to get a double tube but they were out). So we had a rope to tie between our tubes but she was now quite a bit ahead of me. Both my flip flops were floating in the water. Levi grabbed one (later lost it), but the other one was gone. My hat was also gone.
So after a few minutes I overtook Maria, and passed her (not on purpose). Finally I was able to grab onto a branch and hold on until she got closer so that we could tie ourselves up together. Levi was behind us and Annemarie so far behind that I was getting nervous. The river wasn’t that fast, but it was somewhat quick in parts and I was nervous about where Annemarie was. So we stopped again and fortunately Annemarie came floating by with some strangers that we had just met that day. So now we were all together.
We continued floating happily for a little while until we got to a bridge. We had been warned in Sacrament Meeting actually about this bridge. We had planned to get out and walk around, but unfortunately we weren’t able to get over to the side. Probably if I had water shoes I could have pulled us over, but the rocks were killing my feet. So Maria is screaming and we’re all concerned as we come to this bridge that has four little holes. The rapids are going a bit in this area and it’s not looking good.
The Lord blessed us though and went through the fourth hole which was the least crazy and we went through just fine. So floated without incident for an hour and it was really fun. The smell of the forest was delicious and the scenery beautiful, although the water was very cold.
We passed Vivian Park, and knew that our stop to get out was coming right up. We were trying to float toward the right, but went towards the left. We rammed into a bush. I hit it first and was trying to dislodge us but the current was forcing the other 3 kids into me and it was tough. Maria was screaming and I was holding onto her tube to make sure we didn’t get separated. Then my tube flipped up and I was in the water again. Levi jumped onto my tube but that left his vacant. We were all dislodged and floating down the river now, but we had left one tube behind (that would cost $50 to replace since we had rented tubes)….but at this point I was just glad that we were alive. I was hanging onto Maria’s tube and finally hoisted myself up.
We all made it out of the stop and then drove to Vivian Park to run down by where we lost the tube. We were 1 minute too late. Just as we got there, it was dislodged (not sure how) and we saw it floating by. We called out to some people to try to grab it for us, but ran back to the car and drove back to where we had rented the tubes.
The people that we had asked to grab the tube floated by without our tube and then we saw our empty tube going by. It was on the other side of the river, but I was not about to pay $50 for it, so I jumped in the river to it. It was a lot harder than I thought to swim against the current, and SO COLD, but we prevailed and got the tube.
We were alive, and have the picture to prove it!
