Today we went whitewater river rafting with Performance Tours down Browns Canyon on the Arkansas River. The last time Bill and I did river rafting it was pre-children and up in Maine so ages ago and a slightly chillier adventure! Today it was lovely and sunny and we had four great raft mates Blair, Sam, Chase and Forest from Denver and our very experienced guide Dan, who has been doing this for 15 years. It was such fun drifting down the very clear, cold river with beautiful views of the canyon and mountains in the distance, with rapids thrown in every now and again to keep things exciting! Bill managed to video some of it with his Go-Pro. We stopped on a sandy edge of the river and the guides prepared a lunch of chips and salsa, sandwiches and cookies..Yum! We saw all sorts of people go by while we were on shore, a guy in a raft with his dog, people in inflatable kayak’s, hard kayaks, catarafts, on paddle boards (crazy!). The more exciting rapids were definitely after lunch, we had a 100% survival success rate as no one fell out of the boat! It got a little over cast in the afternoon and started raining a bit which made it slightly less fun because if you were wet you got chilly. They shuttled us half an hour back up to where we started, on a school bus driven by the very cool Sharon! We drove into Salida for dinner and went to 50 Burger Shakes & Beer. When we walked in I could tell Bill thought ‘crap it’s fast food’ which it sort of was, but it was all locally sourced and cooked right there and was sooooo delicious. I got the grilled salmon caesar salad and had to ask what some of the ingredients were as it wasn’t your average caesar salad!! It was the first time I’ve eaten a pepitas (type of pumpkin seed) and cojita cheese (mexican version of parmesan) Bill got a turkey burger with their homemade kimchi on it which gave it a nice kick, he also had a Mudslide milkshake. The night sky on the drive back to the campsite was amazing, the sun setting behind the mountains and the swirly cloud, I actually pulled over on the side of the road to take the picture for fear of the light disappearing, Bill thought I was bonkers! Gotta get the shot man! When we got back to the campsite we hunkered down in the tent to keep watching The Martian, which we had started the night before, it was actually cool enough that we got to cozy up with our duvets! Off to the middle of Kansas tomorrow, just stopping as a midway point on the way to St. Louis, Missouri!
Your trip down the Arkansas was definitely better than mine was on the Delores. I think your company was better equipped and more professional. Really nice still shots at the end of the video.
Our guide Dan was great! But I think it can very greatly on the day with the amount of water in the river.
Our guides were very good but the equipment was ready for retirement, they were not well organized and even showed up late to the launch spot and we didn’t get any cool photos.
Wow, what fun! You’re having such a great time!