Part Two 1/2: River Trip Happenings

Day One. Thursday:

I actually never went to bed Wednesday night. I knew that if I did, I would never be able to get up. I got home from work at 10 ish, and if I did go to be, it wouldn't have been until after midnight anyway. Mom braided my hair in a ton of little braids while we watched Tristin and Isolde. Not the best movie...

Anyway, After that, I watched Battlestar Galactica until 3am, then grabbed my small travel back and pillow, the rest of my stuff already taken and loaded up. My brother's and I walked down to the church and waited with the rest of the people until the bus arrived. My friend Angel, who was practically the only reason I was going, was late, and I was kind of worried that she hadn't woken up. She's a late night person like that. But she made it, and the bus arrived close to 4.

It was a school bus. Have you ever ridden in a school bus in the dark for 6 hours straight? Didn't think so. We had Cosco muffins and Sunny D for breakfast before trying to fall asleep.
Maybe it was just our bus, but the bus was like a strobe light. Outside, we could see the reflection of the strobing light everywhere. It was WEIRD!

When we arrived at our destination, we unloaded our trailer with our stuff into their trailer for transportation along the river. We then changed, learned a few rules, got our life-jackets, and loaded into another bus. This bus ride was an hour long, taking us to our launching point. We ate lunch, then launched the boats. I ended up on a boat with my friend Angel, a guide named Sam (Who was hot) and another YSA named Marcus (Also hot). And thankfully, none of my brothers.
For the next few hours of rafting, there were tons of water battles between boats, with lots of dunking, splashing, and boat leaping. It was a blast. We stopped for camp around 4 ish, and quickly set up the tents.

Me, I was still exhausted from my all nighter, and from paddling more than anyone else, and as soon as I had washed all the dirt and sand off as best as I could, I zonked out on my sleeping bag.
We had dinner of hamburgers and such, then the guides, Sam, Mike Jenny, Brianne, and Carry, but on a show, intruducing the trip's theme of Olympics, to mirror Bejinj. They also introduced us to the guest 'country', a small family from France who were traveling with the group.
My raft had picked the name Vengence, so we were from the country of Vengence. I think everyone on the boat had pirates on the brain, including me.

We designed our flag, which was on an orange piece of old tee shirt, then played some 'Olympic' games, like hamburger patty toss, and bean eating contest... I didn't participate... After that, a few people from Vengence and I played some girls camp games, and then I went to bed. By the time I went to bed, it was only around 10:30, which is early for me, but it was pitch dark, and I was still exhausted.

Day Two, Friday; Rapids Day:

Friday was Rapids day. The first half, up until lunch, there were no rapids, but all the guides promised there would be plenty after lunch. At the start of the day, my brother somehow ended up on Vengence, much to my annoyance. He seemed to have it in his mind that he 'needed' to dump me into the water. I had avoided it all the other day, and now he seemed to think I owed him.

It's not hard to avoid that when you are on the beach, but it's really hard when you are on a boat. I was sitting second to the front on the left side, right behind Marcus (*sigh*), when I spied my brother out of the corner of my eye coming at him. I turned just in time to catch him face first, when he pushed me off, and I grabbed on to him and pulled him in with me. The first time I had been all the way into the water, and it was COLD! As soon as I came up, I grabbed hold of the rope that went around the side of the raft, and tried to stay above the water, without my brother pulling me under again.

Then strong arms grabbed my life jacket and pulled me back into the boat. (again, *sigh*) Marcus had rescued me. When I got back in position to paddle again, I thought I had seen the last of my brother. Alas, it was not so.

This time, he pulled me in from the water. And this time, I scrapped my foot on something, and started to bleed. Marcus pulled me up again, and someone else pulled my brother in, and I was really pissed at him for the rest of the trip.

We stopped for lunch, which was sandwiches again, (With roast beef and swiss cheese, yum!) then when we set out again, Vengence had lost some people. My brother had decided to take a Ducky, a two man Kayak, and Marcus had as well. (Seperate, of course.) To make up for the loss of cute Marcus, Zac, another YSA joined use. (I can't decide who was cuter...)

Then came the rapids part of the day. It was a blast! Our guide steered us into the best ones, and everything was going good, until later.

During one of the rapids, when I had switched sides to sit in the back by Sam on the right side, we hit a rapid wrong, and it's hard to hold onto the raft with just your slippery, wet legs, and I fell off, along with two other people.

This is the part were I was terrified. People tell me I was under the water, stuck in a recirculating current for 3 seconds, 6 seconds, and 1 minute, though I know Zac was kidding when he said that. I would be dead if it was that long.

All I know was that I was under the water, and all I could think about were two things. "I'm going to die." And "I need air."

I don't think I have ever been so scared in my life. There was nothing but water, I couldn't tell which way was up, then there was air for a second, long enough for me to take a gasp of air. Then I was under again. I came up a second time and this time I was out of the recirculating current, but not out of the rapids. I tried to manuver into the Pina Colada, the position everyone was told to do when in the rapids, and found it was harder than it had sounded on the beach. The waves kept pushing me, and splashing me in the face. I was trying to get back to the boat, which was getting farther and father away with each breath.

As soon as I had come up, I had looked for the boat, and when I had found it, I could see that Sam and Zac both were standing up, near the edge. From their body language, I sort of assumed that they were both worried for me. It made me feel a little bit better as I struggled for my life.
I caught sight of a ducky with only one person in it, Karina, also a YSA. I then tried to get to it, instead of the all to distant raft, and made it. When I was safe aboard, we rescued the paddle that had fallen with me, then sped up to where the raft was floating. I got back on board the boat and was welcomed back happily. The other two people who had fallen out had fallen so close to the boat that they were able to be rescued right away, it was only me who had been so far off.

After that, I was little bit more careful about holding onto the boat, but not so terrified that I didn't want to raft any more. Sam said that he was glad that I was a good sport about it, and Zac, and later Marcus when he heard about it, both said they were glad I was still alive. (*glows*)
The rest of the rapids were pretty tame compared to the one I fell of into, but it was still fun.

When we stopped for camp and after we had set up the tents, the stake had an activity. Fear Factor, of all things. I was kind of leery at first, I'm not the kind of person who will eat things I don't know anything about. But it was all fun. We were all divided into teams, and, lucky me, I got Angel on me team, as well as both Marcus and Zac. It must have been my lucky day. The following were the activities: Finding gummy bears in flour, the trust fall (Which I have only done once, and never so quickly as I did then... Both Zac and Marcus were there to catch me...), holding weights in the air as long as you could, seeing how many marshmellows you could fit into your mouth (I got 6, one girl got 24!), and trying to get across a piece of land with only 9 wooden stepping stones, a mute, a blind person, and a person with no arms. After that, all the leaders told everyone what they all meant spiritually, then bore there testimony.

After that we had dinner of spaghetti, and after that we went to bed.

Sort of. We were going to go to bed, but then we saw the stars. Angel and Melissa and I laid out on the sidewalk gazing at the BLANKET of stars that we could see, including the milky way, the big and little dipper, and Orion. It was amazing! And VENUS! Man, it was so BRIGHT! I love the stars so much...

Then we went to bed.

Day Three, Saturday:

After breakfast of french toast, we packed up and launched the boats for the last time. As soon as we got past the last little bit of rapids, all the rafts, including the food raft, totally five, hooked up together to form a party barge, and they flipped one of the rafts over. On the flipped mat, they then held wrestling matches. Lots of them. The first one was between Sam and the other guy guide, Mike. I cheered for Sam, and he won. Then there was a match between Zac and Marcus, who are best friends. That one went on forever it seemed. Supposedly Marcus is afraid of the water, or of drowning, or of something... I think it was irrational fear or something like that... Anyway, I didn't know who to cheer for that match and Zac won, then helped pull Marcus in. It was so cool to see them be best buds...

After a while, I got bored. I didn't know many people, and while it was fun to watch the hotties wrestle, I don't much like wrestling. So I floated in the water, rode a ducky, stuff like that.
It was about noon I think when we landed and loaded the rafts onto this big truck then boarded another bus back to where we had started.

This time, the trip took minutes, and when we got out, we hand lunch of tuna sandwiches, then loaded our stuff from their trailer to ours, loaded the bus, and left, all exhausted. It was around this time that my sunburned legs started to REALLY hurt. I could barely walk, and it hurt when ever anything touched it. My shoulders got burnt, but they didn't hurt. My scalp also, but all it did was get crusty yellow stuff in my hair... Yuck...

The ride home, I tried to sleep, STILL getting over the all nighter, but it was too loud. Everyone was hyper and ready to be home. Zac sat in the back of the bus with, of all people to have, his girlfriend... Marcus sat a few seats behind and on the opposite side of the isle with my younger brother, not the one who pushed me in.

We talked a little, my brother threw skittles at me, and smiled when I glared playfully at him. Then Marcus tried to get a skittle in my mouth, and I just had to comply, and smile as wide as I could, and laugh when it didn't make it. We then tried again, and he ran out of skittles after that. I made a friend with a girl who is in my ward and who I should have been friends with, but never got the chance to... And we made it back home around 6. Then Angel's mom gave me a ride home, and the trip was over....

It was a blast thought!