WanderingSusan: RAFTING DOWN THE SNAKE RIVER! July 6th

After a lovely night in our quad room, with just the 3 of us, and an outside breakfast with our boiled eggs, veggies, fruit, etc. looking up at the JH ski area, here in Teton Village and watching the parasailers land right in front of us, we headed into Jackson to the Lewis and Clark rafting place. Rod dropped us off and he was going to spend a relaxing day in town shopping, reading the paper, etc.

Betty and I waited for about an hour for our 2:30 departure. A group of 8 young girls were waiting, with 2 24 packs of Bud Light. They mistakenly thought they had signed up for the float down the river for a couple of hours, no rapids. WRONG! The owner of the shop very graciously provided them with a cooler to leave the beer in and said it would be waiting for them when they returned. They couldn't even take one on the bus and he didn't recommend them having beer before they left. They were good sports about it but one girl dropped out at the idea of whitewater rafting!

We had a 40 minute bus ride, with hail and rain pouring down on us to the launch site. But it had stopped by the time we arrived. We were outfitted in our life jackets and I put on a rain jacket as well in case it got cold. We were in a boat with a family from Iowa - mom and dad, college age son Joe and 12 year old Hailey, adopted from Korea. Joe Smith, recommended by Courtney at the Hostel, was our guide - very personable, graduate of Amherst majoring in Environment/Water studies, etc., from Massachusetts. Seemed very happy to be living here and doing this job! Turns out he and Courtney had both been at Amherst but not really known each other until they got out here. Great to see someone who loves their job!! I think this was the 3rd trip of the day for him.

We each had a paddle (will finish later!)