White Water Rafting

One of the highlights of our Pocono vacation was a white water rafting trip down the Lehigh River. We thought it would be a fun trip to share with our grandson. At thirteen he is quite confident that he can do it all. We were told it was mostly a float trip with a few minor rapids. Obviously “minor rapids” means different things to different people.

We arrived at the check-in point and were assigned a raft. Each raft group had to decide on a captain for their individual raft. What? Where is the professional guide I expected? “Oh, we have four. There is Chris up front to lead the pack (there were about twenty rafts in our group and we never saw Chris again after he pushed his raft into the water). In the back Matt will act as sweep and make sure no one is left behind. Jenny and Bill will roam through the group in their kayaks to make sure we are doing okay.” I was not sure that was enough supervision for this novice group. Next we listened to the safety lecture. We learned what to do when the raft tips over, how to float down the river safely if you get thrown out of the raft and how to signal for help if there is a serious injury. I was getting nervous. Then we were off, floating down the river. At times the river was slow and peaceful. DQ jumped in the water and swam and played with others more adventurous than Grandpa and me. Pulling him back in the raft when the guides began to yell,” Everyone, back in the boats. White water ahead.” Then we paddled hard forward or hard back and tried to miss the rocks that were sure to catch us and flip us over. We successfully negotiated all the rapids and were quite proud of ourselves. DQ yelled as we finished the last one, “This is the best moment of my whole life!”

It was a great moment for us all.

The T-shirt I bought after the trip says, “You don’t quit rafting because you get old, you get old because you quit rafting.” I’m not sure if I’ll keep rafting, but I will keep on enjoying the all the adventures of living.