What Was I Thinking?

We talked Mary into going white water rafting. I was excited to go until I heard the "safety talk", then I was scared. Seriously...there was a pit in my stomach with all the possibilities of what might happen and where to grab the safety rope and how and what it means to "get down" or "lean in" or "right forward, left back" or "left forward, right back". My head was about to explode with all the details, but it was too late. We were there. Get a life jacket and a helmet...no one's staying behind.

And so, off we went and to our great surprise, no one fell out of our boat. The rapids were class 1 to 4 if that means anything to you.

Tiffany was our captain, but she could rarely hear or understand the commands. This wasn't Tiffany's fault. The river was loud and our guide didn't believe in yelling and even when he did, I wasn't sure half the time if he said "lean in" or "get down". This was comic relief for all of us. Mary was always involved in a conversation with our guide about the wildlife or the indigenous people and would not hear the commands either...even though she was sitting right by the guide. He would say, "Maria, forward". This was also comic relief.

I had my foot jammed under the seat so that I wouldn't fly out of the boat. The water felt cold and the sun wasn't shining. How my legs got sun burnt, I'll never know. Carrie was probably the most confident and the best of all of us...she has some great arm strength gained by wrangling some animals on her vet calls.

Enjoy the pics! It was a great way to end our trip! The whole team was a blast. We laughed so hard each and every day!

This was either "get down" or "lean in"...not sure which one. :-)