Day 99 - Tuesday - On the Arkansas River
We're up early and sign in for our rafting trip. Mike has me move the RV, and Vicky rents a
wetsuit. We join our fellow explorers,
get our life jackets and helmets and pile into one of two buses to drive to the
launch spot. Joe, one of the guides,
entertains us while giving the safety rules.
He hosts a mock radio show and interviews each of us. He manages to show how all of our jobs, from
tax preparer to teacher to bartender, are just like being a river guide. So when we arrive at the "put-in"
spot we're all in a good mood.
We're assigned to John in what turns out to be the lead boat
of the 5 that go downriver. Our fellow
riders are a couple from Denver and
their 7 year old daughter Thea who clearly doesn't want to go on the trip! John explains how to paddle and the commands
he will give us, we step into the 55 degree water (which increases our
determination not to get tipped out of the boat) and take our positions in the
raft.
Over the next 3 hours or so we vanquish rapids with names
like "Big Drop", "Widow Maker" (it didn't!) and the 7
Sisters (number 5 was the most fun, but why are natural things always called 7
Sisters and never 7 Brothers?). Between
the rapids, on calmer stretches of water, John explains natural features we are
seeing and also the profusion of wildlife, none of which is evident today. Apparently there are more mountain lions in
this area than any other part of the state.
I hope they enjoy watching us braving the rapids.
Vicky and I have rafted in Arizona
(Class IV Salt River), China
(easy but scary as the quality of Chinese domestic products including rafts
varies greatly) and New Zealand
(Tongariro river, at least Class III) among
other locations. So we figured these
Class III rapids would be no problem - and
they weren't. Our boat was the only one
of the 5 that never got hung up on a rock, and nobody took an involuntary
swim. (A teenage boy in one of the other
boats coined this term to describe what happened to him, although since he was
a teenage boy he may have chosen to dive in).
John was very clear and patient with his instructions. On reflection we decide that he was assigned
the family with the reluctant child and the two oldest rafters because he's the
most experienced guide. By the way, it
wasn't long into the trip before Thea was having the time of her life. When one rapid threw her back into our
section of the boat she giggled in delight!
We're definitely tired towards the end from heavy paddling, and after
getting out we find pains, Vicky more than me.
But we're both thrilled with the experience and would do it again. Being 10 years older than the last time we
rafted makes a difference.
After lunch we return to the cats (Quill and Cosette, not
the black one), have lunch in the RV, hitch up the car and resume our
travels. We have a 7 mile struggle up to
Poncha Pass
at 9,110ft. Again getting up into alpine
country. At the summit I'm surprised to
find that, rather than driving abruptly downhill, we're almost immediately on a
wide plain covered in sagebrush, with higher mountains far off to the
west. By the time we arrive in Saguache
(pop 493), county seat of its namesake county, we're already down to 7,707ft
without even noticing the drop. We're
still in sagebrush country and not a lot changes until we arrive in Del Norte,
our destination for tonight.
We passed through this town back in May the day we left
Pagosa Springs after our delightful enforced week there, and noticed a cute
little RV park that Vicky thought would be a good stop for tonight. So we arrive, with reservations, at Woods and
River RV park, which turns out not to be the one we previously noticed. This is no problem, however, as the
"river" in their name is the Rio Grande,
which also rises here in Colorado. This one ends up in the Gulf of
Mexico, of course. Seems
like Colorado supplies water to
all the major seas around this part of the continent.
Our RV site is close to the river so the view is
spectacular. However, on arriving, the
exertion of the rafting finally catches up with us. Our site doesn't have a sewer dump so we stop
at the communal dump on the way in. We
must have been very full as it seems to take forever to drain our tanks. By the time this job is done we're also
drained of energy so we do the minimum necessary to set up the RV, make and eat
dinner outside watching the river, and go to sleep. A great day, but a tiring one.
Day 100 - Relaxing - sort of
Nowhere to go today, so we have a relaxing time by the Rio
Grande. We
enjoy Vicky's pancakes for breakfast outside, and then relax. Except that I do the laundry and Vicky
manages to repair the grilles that were damaged in the storm back in Belle
Fourche. We also manage to
get an amazing amount of business done on the internet, clearing up several
lingering problems, and Vicky remaps our route to Santa Fe.
The Keurig coffee maker hasn't been working for several days
but the recommended cure - descaling - could take a lot of water so we waited
until today, when we have "city" water, to do it. Unfortunately it's still clogged up and we
can't find another cure, but the prices of machines are now reasonable so we
will go visit Walmart tomorrow for a replacement.
But in general it was a relaxing day and fortunately both of
us have recovered from the aches and pains caused by the rafting. Tomorrow we leave Colorado
for New Mexico.
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