Yesterday we went white water rafting on the Colorado. Last year David and Laurie had a great time on the New River in West Virginia, but Alice was about 6 months too young to go, so she missed out. And boy was she annoyed.
However here in the west, no such silly rules such as "safe age to participate" have been put on earth to destroy one's fun, so we signed up, and Alice, Laurie and I duly reported for rafting at 7am (a bit of a challenge for all, considering the teenager type ages of the kids involved), hopped on a bus with 19 other people, and drove for an hour and a half to reach the Colorado River above Westwater Canyon - almost, but not quite, in Colorado.
By the way, there are also no silly rules about wearing helmets... So we put on our sunscreen and life jackets, filled our water bottles, and hopped in the raft.
The Colorado is not a clean river. Depending on what has been washed down by wherever the flash floods associated with the Monsoon, it can vary in color from red, to brown, with various shades of yellow in between. Yesterday, the color was hard to describe, but it was sort of yellow. The water was NOT clear, in fact it did not really resemble water. It was more like a slurry of water and lots of fine particles. if you put your hand in, it disappeared. Apparently it is clean though, which is just as well, because as we went down the white (yellow) water rapids, I and the Swiss guy beside me, who were paddling at the front, got lots of mouthfuls of it. It tastes pretty clean, just a bit gritty.
I live in hope that the white t-shirt that Alice wore, will eventually return to a slightly less yellow shade.
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