Rich’s Collection of Geekery

Dereck, Debbie, Jeff and I went rafting on the Kennebec river in West Forks, Maine a couple weeks ago at Three Rivers. We used three tickets that Debbie got for free through her school. (thanks Beverly School for the Deaf!)

Click on the full link to see photos, or view more of them here on Flickr.

Our trip started on Friday evening…

… we left at 7:45pm, on a 5 hour trip up to West Forks. I reserved a bunk house up there, but we had to get there by 1am in order to check in. (of course everyone in the car fell asleep!) On the way up, it was tough to see what I was driving through, so I couldn’t tell if I was driving along a river, up a mountainside, or whatever. Fortunately, we made it there by 12:40. Just in time to check in, and fall right asleep.

We woke up at 7:30 in the morning and went to the bar to get breakfast and to rent wetsuits at the gift shop. Check in was at 8:30 and we spent a little time trying to fit into our wetsuits (which felt kind of soggy and cold). Safety lecture was led by Pat, and we were loaded onto the bus before 9:30.

The bus ride brought us to the river before 10:00, and we were in the water by 10:30. Stacy, our guide, helped us learn the basic commands so that we’d all paddle in the right direction as we plunged into the rapids. The camera crew went ahead in kayaks. After a few minutes of hanging around and practicing, we went into our first class 2 rapid.

Going through the rapid on a raft actually feels pretty safe, and probably felt a lot better given the fact we had wetsuits on. We got a decent feel for how to follow Stacy’s instructions after the first couple of rapids, and the river gave us a break before getting into bigger stuff.

At one point we all had the opportunity to jump out of the raft and go down “swimmers’ rapid”. Debbie and Dereck eagerly jumped in, along with almost everyone else. I probably should have despite the fact I was wearing the camera. The downside to jumping in is getting back out… and being very cold and wet. Jeff also decided to stick behind in the boat, so we ended up hauling people back into the raft before heading into more rapids.

Near the end of the trip, we got into much calmer water. So we had conversations about where we were from, what everybody did, etc. Two rafters were teachers of adults with special needs. Awesome.

After the rafting trip was over (around 2:30pm) we took the bus back to the camp, and got to see photos and videos of ourselves, some of us looking very ridiculous indeed. The video guys do a pretty professional job, especially considering they put together a DVD in less than 3 hours.

All in all, this was a fantastic trip. The guides are so friendly up at Three Rivers and I’d love to go again some time. Hmm… they offer sky diving too…

Current Mood:  thirsty