River Tales - Why Rivers?

I have always loved rivers, looking at them, listening to them and even the smells that I associate with being near a river. I suppose my true love of rivers came about as a result of a rafting trip that I was invited to go on with some friends from work. It must have been around 1994 or 1995. I worked with some friends that had their own rafts and one day at lunch they were discussing an upcoming trip and I was invited to go along. I told them I would love to; little did I know what a love affair it would start with rafting.

We went out on the Arkansas near Canon City, Colorado and it turned out to be quite an eventful trip for this novice. I had taken one commercial trip with my wife and daughter and one of my daughter's friends but there was no comparison to being with a private group for the first time.

I was on a pontoon raft with the owner and his future son in law, the boat owner and I taught at the same school. When we went into one of the worst rapids on this stretch of river, "Three Rocks", we went in at the wrong angle and flipped the boat. Nice introduction to the sport. I came up and was under the boat but fortunately was able to feel my way along the tube and get out from under. The next thing was to get out of the river but the river had other plans. I managed to grab onto a rock in the middle of the river and sucked onto it like a water frog. I wasn't about to let go if I could help it.

Another boat, also a pontoon raft, was coming down the river behind us and they intended to rescue whoever they could. They came towards me and at the last minute told me to jump and they pulled me up between the floats onto the boat, other than a couple of badly banged up fingers and a shin I was none the worse for wear. The owner had managed to swim into an eddy and get to the side while his son in law was stuck on a sand bar on the other side of the river. The boat I was on paddled close to him and had him jump back into the river so he could be picked up.

While it was scary and could have been much worse and while it made for good stories for years to come I think the reason I truly fell in love with river rafting was how impressed and grateful I was with how calmly they all acted in an emergency. I never felt that they would put me in an unreasonably unsafe situation and I was fortunate to go with them on many future trips including a 216 mile trip through the Grand Canyon. I will write about some of those trips in future posts but I just wanted to share a little about where my love of rivers and especially being on rivers, came from.

It is that love of rivers that led me to buy myself a birthday present a couple of days before my birthday and take it out on the San Joaquin River that is very close to where I live. Here are a few pictures from that first trip.

While I only spend a little over an hour on the water that day it was as nice and peaceful as I anticipated and it will be the first of many river miles I cover in California.