Rafting the American River

Jackson always convinces me to do daring things when I'm really not much of a daring person. I agreed to go whitewater rafting thinking it would not be too scary since California is experiencing a large drought and all. Nope. Wrong. All wrong. It was insane. I ordered the c.d. of professional photos because the ones I had time to snap with our GoPro don't do the river's intensity justice. I'll post those as soon as the c.d. arrives!

Our guide was a former Navy guy who made me feel pretty safe out there. He got a good laugh out of how much I did not want to fall out of the boat and had to remind me when we got to calm water that I could release my death grip on the boat's handles. Oops. :)

Our guide, Danny, and another rafter

The river was a little wild

Jackson hopped out for a swim during a calm time

There were 6 total rafters plus our guide

We had to exit the boat to go around this class 6 rapid

Danny loving life

Coming up on some fast water

We made it through stopping for lunch without having anyone fall in accidentally. I felt good about things. Lunch was awesome and served on the side of the river. I thought we were homefree. I was wrong. We got back in the boat for a few minutes to approach the class 6 rapid that we were not allowed to go over. When we were getting out of the boat I jumped directly onto a hidden rock and banged up my left knee (my formerly good knee) something awful. I didn't know if I was even going to be able to walk let alone scale this waterfall. I made it, though. Soon enough my knee didn't hurt because the very next rapid that we approached caused Jackson to be thrown from the boat. I freaked out. Danny assured me that Jackson was fine and that pulling him back in the boat at that moment was not feasible that he'd have to ride out the rapid with just his body. It was then that I saw Jackson headed directly for a boulder the size of Texas. I screamed from my soul and by the grace of God he didn't smack right into the thing. The woman in front of me clearly wasn't feeling my panic (it wasn't her husband in the water, after all) so she was not paddling very hard. I had to make it crystal clear to her that she needed to paddle. I don't think she liked me much after my message to her was relayed. In the end we got Jackson back into the boat and he was safe without a single injury. I was traumatized. It was so scary and I felt so helpless. 

Needless to say this will be the last whitewater rafting trip for us for quite awhile. That evening we stayed in Grass Valley, CA which is a cute little mining town. We ate at a little Mexican restaurant before returning to our room for the night to ice my aching knee. Getting old is not fun! 

We had a slight change of plans and instead of going to Tahoe for the 4th (all of the hotel rooms in the area are booked- oops!) we are headed back to Sacramento for the evening. It should be fun to explore the city a little bit.