“C’mon waves, is that the best that you can do?!”

I’ll give anyone who knows our daughters ONE guess as to who said that when we were rafting on Wednesday. 

The day started out….4 times. I woke up at 2am. Then 3:30am. Then 5:45am. And finally, 7:30am.  We thought it was going to get cold overnight in the (miniature) tents, but it was actually pleasant. The air mattresses stayed inflated, and the night was pretty comfortable. Not sure why I woke up so many times, but I was easily able to go back to sleep with nothing but the gurgles and splashes of the river right next to us. Right as we stepped out of our tents we were greeted with piping hot coffee, blueberry pancakes, and bacon. I am very impressed with this company, and highly recommend the overnight rafting trip with them. Look up AVA’s Colorado Rafting and Adventure Trips if you are in the area. 

We packed up our (tiny) tents, rolled up the air mattresses, and got all of our stuff packed up in the dry bags. One of our guides was responsible for getting all of the supplies and people’s stuff to the campsite and back. It looked like he had a pretty tough job, as he had to navigate a raft packed full with this stuff down the rapids. 

We got another lesson on paddling. I think this might have been a reflection of our skills the day before, because we noticed that the other raft didn’t get this refresher course. We pushed off at about 9am. It was an absolutely gorgeous day; the sun was streaming through the trees and bouncing off of the crystal clear river. We made our way through Brown’s Canyon, which was absolutely beautiful. There were high canyon walls, magnificent trees, squirrels, and “Mohawk ducks”, as our kids called them. 

The rapids were great, and there were a couple where we thought we might be thrown from the boat. As we were maneuvering one of these, the guide said, “Steve, move back a bit!” I looked around for someone on our raft named, “Steve”, and realized he was talking to me. Emily picked this up and ran with it, and has been calling me Steve ever since. 

One of the first rapids was pretty easy, and that is when Emily shouted, “C’mon waves, is that the best you can do?!” That kid is going to be running a company, or a country, some day. It is really hard to describe in text just how awe-inspiring and amazing this part of the rafting trip was. 

Haley

Ashley

That's Emily getting drenched in the front of the boat. If you decide not to row, there's a price!

10 miles after starting our trek down the river (the two day total was 21 miles), we pulled into a clearing. The van was there to pick us up, and they had fixings for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. This wasn’t even advertised as part of the package, so it was a nice touch. But, we had High Mountain Pies on the brain, so we passed on the sandwiches and loaded our stuff into the van. We headed back up to where we left our car the previous day. We packed all of our bare minimum necessities (like the stuffed animals) back in the car and headed back up to Leadville. On our way there we saw this awesome banner:

Sherri asked me to get out and take a picture of it. As I walked toward the banner, I realized that I recently upped the amount of my life insurance…..and wondered if this was a coincidence.

High Mountain Pies is a very popular place. This is challenging for them, as they literally have three tables inside the restaurant, and two of those tables only fit two people each. The rest of the seating is outside on the side and back of the restaurant. We ordered a large pizza and a calzone. They were very yummy. Emily got up and asked the manager if they had a High Mountain Pies in Arizona…alas, they do not….sorry kid.

We piled back into the car for a two and a half hour trip to Steamboat Springs, CO.  

This picture doesn't do justice to the view...it was stunning.

We got to the vacation rental condo that we booked, and the kids gave it a resounding “thumbs up.” It was a fun place for kids, as it had an upstairs with a loft. The kitchen and living area were downstairs and there were two beds upstairs. We went to the pool to hang out, and the girls alternated time between the hot tub and the pool.  Haley even got some practice laps in and lamented about how much practice she was missing. While we were hanging out at the pool, Sherri was doing a couple of loads of (free!) laundry. This is the realistic, but not fun part of a long trip like this. I’m intentionally omitting all of the lugging of luggage up and down to the hotel rooms, bathroom breaks, keeping the coolers stocked with food and ice, and constant Googling for directions and landmarks. Trying to keep it glamorous here, folks. For what it’s worth, I folded all the laundry!

Sherri joined us at the pool, and after we finished there we went back up to the room. We had a great family dinner of pasta and meat sauce while we watched some of the rafting video. We were all zapped after a fun-filled day, and we hit the sack at about 10:30pm.