We rafted the Rogue again today. This time we started up higher from the hatchery. What a treacherous trip it was. Our raft today consisted of myself, Elijah, Aimee, Leah and Ellie. Thank God again for Elijah although I'm not sure he was quite as thankful for his teammates. Right off the bat we got into shallow water and struggled to get out. Elijah finally jumped out and pulled us free. In this struggle our boat lost an oar and broke an oar. We continued on until we came to the sharp left curve at the cliff which we avoided slamming into quite well but coming out of the curve and into the rapids somehow Aimee lost her balance and went over board. She was to be the first of many to do so that day. She quickly scrambled back on board and regained her composure. Elijah did us well as a guide and expertly navigated us into our halfway stop where we had a picnic. The kids all warmed up and then filled up as we dinned on sandwiches and chips, washed down with bottled water. When we started up again our hopes were high that the rough part was over. We switched Aimee for Adam in our boat as he was longing to be first and our boat was always ahead of the other. Things started out well until we hit the rough water and before my eyes I saw little Leah disappear overboard. The mom in me started to panic but before I could get it out of me she popped up again and Elijah scooped her in. Her eyes were as big as saucers and her little mouth drawn up like s fish. She was frightened out of her wits and it was good to see Elijah softly speak to her and reassure her.
Finally our rapids were over and as peace settled on us, in the calm still waters we let ourselves quietly drift downstream. All too soon we were assaulted as we came upon another large orange 8 man raft filled with drunk young men who thought it was great fun to squirt us with their water pumps. Thus began the last of our man over board troubles. We quickly called for Leah to retaliate. She was our official retaliator since she had lost her oar early on. Alas, the grown men proved to much for her and Adam came to her assistance. He was doing quite well and had a large bark to go with his squirts. The young drunk men were having a jolly good time with it all when Adam lost the water pump overboard. One young mam from the orange raft jumped in swimming towards it hoping to seize it. Then our brave little Adam likewise jumped in to get to it first although he adamantly denies jumping in and insist he simply lost his balance I'm quite sure it was an act of bravery on his part.
We finally did loose our rambunctious bunch and enjoyed the rest of our trip trouble free and held up our oars as we sailed over the last bit of rapids before our exit relieved to have our treacherous trip over.
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