The river was cold. No one warned me about that. “Do you really expect me to get in here? I can’t swim if my arms and legs are frozen, you know.” I stood at the edge of the river and pretended to do a freestyle stroke, but with stiff arms. “See?”
“Riley, quit being so dramatic and get up here and help us.” Mom had her hands on her hips. She, Fawn, and Matt stood by the van that held our raft on the roof. I guess they expected me to help carry the big old thing down the hill. Rusty and Flip weren’t going to be any help with their injuries. Flip had asked Rusty to follow him on foot along the river and be his photography assistant today. Since Flip was still struggling with that cast, he planned to have her haul the equipment while he limped along down the riverbank. It didn’t sound like a lot of fun for Rusty, but at least she wouldn’t get wet.
Matt positioned all four of us on one side of the van. “Okay,” he said, “on the count of three, we’re going to pull the raft off the van halfway. Then, Fawn and I will get under it, and walk our hands over to the other side as you two pull it off the van the rest of the way. The goal is to end up with the raft over our heads. If you get tired, let it rest on your head. Then we’ll count to three again, and at the same time, we’ll move out from under the raft and let her down gently to the ground.”
“Sounds like an instant headache,” I said.
“Good thing you had that ping-pong training,” Flip said. “You’re ready for anything now.”
“Tell me you didn’t play ping-pong with him,” Fawn said.
“Oh yeah, I did. I have this purple lip as proof.”
Fawn grimaced. “I’ve had many lips like that myself.”
“Okay,” Matt yelled. “Here we go. One, two . . .”
I reached up toward the raft, but my arms were too short to even touch it.
Uh-oh.
“Three!”
All I heard next was a bunch of ladies screaming.
“I don’t have it!”
“Whoops!”
“It’s not working!”
Then, the raft fell to the ground. Dust kicked up all around us. We sputtered and coughed. When the dust settled, we watched as Matt climbed out from under the raft. He looked like a sandman.
“Okay then,” he said, as he spit some dirt out of his mouth. “Let’s take her down to the water, shall we?”
We all grabbed a handle from each of the four corners of the raft, and we slid and tripped down the hill toward the river. I tried my best to carry my end of the back of the raft, but that thing was heavy. A couple of times I dropped my handle and the raft dragged. I also couldn’t see what was in front of me, so I accidently kicked a rock with my big toe. Ouch. The most annoying thing about that was that I was sure it scraped off some of my glittery, gold toenail polish that I had put on the night before to go with my new Ready Eddy river sandals.
When we finally made it down to the water, I dunked my toe in. To numb it mostly, which worked in that cold water. I also wanted to assess the damage to my pedicure. Just as I thought, the whole big toe was missing polish. And the toenail was chipped.
Great.
Flip and Rusty took pictures of us as we put on our life vests and helmets.
“Don’t photograph my toe, please. It looks nasty. And, why do we need these helmets?” I hoisted on my vest, which smelled weird to me. “Did a fish wear this last?”
Rusty sniffed the vest and crinkled up her nose. “Sorry about the toe. Luckily, this is only a practice photo shoot.”
I looked down at Rusty’s nice, polished gold toenails. Since she was originally scheduled to be on this shoot with us, she had on a pair of Ready Eddys too.
“Hey, Flip, you can photograph Rusty’s toes and paste them on my legs for the pictures since hers look better.”
Matt handed us all paddles. “Can we stop talking about toes for just a minute so I can give you some instruction?”
Matt assigned us special positions in the raft. Fawn was placed up front in the center, and Mom and I took our places in the second row — me on the left, Mom on the right. Matt was in the middle in the back.
The first thing I did wrong was that I sat down in the bottom of the raft.
“You need to sit on the side and tuck your feet under that middle part at the bottom.” Matt had to be kidding. How was sitting on the side of the raft supposed to keep me in it?
“Let’s try an easy command,” Matt said. “When I call, ‘All forward,’ I want you to paddle forward. Make sure you get your paddle in the water and really dig in. That’s what’s going to keep your body in the raft.”
I learned from the Half Dome hike that Matt really knows what he’s talking about, so I tried to stay focused and do what he asked so I would stay safe. Matt said to dig, so I did. But we weren’t in the water, so I dug a hole in the dirt.
“Riley, you don’t have to actually dig yet,” Matt said. “This is just practice.”
“Oh, sorry.”
“No problem. Let’s try another one. All back!”
We pretended to paddle backward, but I didn’t dig this time.
“Hey, this is easy,” I said.
“Oh yeah, well how about this? Right forward, left back!”
I had to think about that for a minute, but I got it. I was on the left, so I was supposed to paddle backward.
“What should I do?” Fawn was sitting in the middle of the front seat.
“Get on Mrs. Hart’s side. I’ll stay over here with Riley. That should even out the sides.”
“Won’t that spin us in circles?” I asked.
“Yep,” Matt said. “That’s the fun of it. You don’t need to worry, Riley. This is an easy trip.”
“Excuse me,” Flip said, “But this is making for some pretty boring pictures. When do you try it in the water?”
“Patience, man. We have one more command to learn. It’s one of the most important.”
All this dusty paddling was making me hot and thirsty. The river water actually looked inviting to me now, so I determined to listen to Matt so we could get on with the show.
“When I call, ‘Get down,’ I want you all to kneel down and get as low as you can in the bottom of the raft. Duck your heads down and hold your paddle next to you, with the handle part pointing up. Grab one of the raft straps with your other hand and hang on.”
“When are we going to have to do that?” I asked.
“When we go over the waterfalls,” Matt said. “I’ll stay up on the back of the raft and guide us down.”
Waterfalls? I immediately thought of Vernal Falls that we had just hiked up in Yosemite. And Niagara Falls.
“I’m sorry,” I said, “but I don’t think I can do waterfalls.”
“These aren’t big waterfalls. Still, I don’t want you ladies falling out of the raft.”
“So, what if we do?” Mom asked.
“If you fall out, hang on to your paddle, point your feet downstream, and pretend you’re sitting in a lounge chair. You’ll bounce off the rocks fairly gently. I’ll try to get to you and pull you into the raft, but if I can’t, just relax, and when the white water stops you’ll be able to swim to the shore, where the eddy is.”
“What’s an eddy again?” I knew Matt told me before at one of our meetings, but I forgot. Or maybe I was more interested in remembering now since I might have to swim to one.
“It’s where the current goes the opposite way from the rest of the water.”
“Just think,” Fawn said, “you gotta go against the flow.”
“Oh. Okay. Because the flow is going down the waterfall, right? Hey, what if I go down a waterfall without the raft?”
“You won’t,” Matt said. “But if you do, curl up into a ball, take a deep breath, and relax. The water will pull you down under for a little while, but you’ll eventually pop back up.”
“Like a ping-pong ball,” Flip laughed. Then he snapped a picture of me.
“Right into your lip,” I said.
“Ooh,” Fawn said, “I’d like a picture of that.”
Our “dry run” was now over, so after waiting a few minutes for Flip and Rusty to hike to the first lookout, we finally got to shove off. I put my hand over the side of the raft and grabbed a handful of water to splash on my dusty legs. They cleaned off nicely, but unfortunately, my feet were covered in mud.
“Hey, how are we gonna get any good pictures of my feet when they look like this?”
“Don’t worry,” Matt said. “Morning Coffee will wash everything off.”
“Morning Coffee?”
“Yeah. Can’t you hear it brewing? All forward!”
It turns out that “Morning Coffee” was the name of our first rapid. They call it that because the freezing water slaps you in the face and wakes you right up. Unfortunately, when that happened, I was so shocked that I didn’t follow Matt’s instructions.
“Uh, girls?” Matt said. “No one paddled through that rapid.”
My face was frozen, and since my mouth had dropped open right before the wave hit me, it was full of icy river water. So I choked my answer.
“It’s . . . c-c-cold!” I looked over at Mom and Fawn. They didn’t have a dry place on them. Fawn was shivering, but at least she was smiling. Mom, on the other hand, looked like a cat that had been dunked in a bathtub by surprise.
“Was that a Class Four?” I asked Matt.
Matt threw his head back and laughed. “That was barely a Class One! Maybe you should have stayed home and sipped tea today.”
“Nonsense,” Fawn said. “Now that we’ve had our morning coffee, we’re ready to roll. Right ladies?” She sat up straighter on her side of the raft. “What’s next?”
I wasn’t ready to roll. But I was in the raft, and the only way to get out of “what was next” was to leave the raft, and I never intended to do that — ever.
“The next rapid,” Matt said, “is called Break Neck.”
“Lovely.” Mom still looked a little rattled.
“It gets its name because the water is shallow, and that causes the raft to skid over several rocks. Our heads are going to bounce around like we’re human bobbleheads. We all have to paddle hard to keep us from stalling in the middle. If we stall, we’ll have to get out and push the raft.”
This time when I heard Matt’s “All forward” command, I paddled as hard as I could. And then I saw Fawn’s head bobbing up and down, which was hilarious, so I stopped paddling for a minute to look over at Mom.
“R-i-i-i-i-l-l-l-e-e-e-y! P-a-a-a-d-d-d-l-l-l-e!” She babbled as she bobbled.
“O-o-o-h, y-e-e-a-a-h,” I babbled back.
We stalled. Uh-oh.
Water continued to rush hard on both sides. I could feel the raft lifting up behind us. I glanced back in time to see Matt, standing outside of the raft, pushing the back end.
“All forward!” he yelled.
I tried. But my paddle hit rocks. Same thing must’ve happened to Mom and Fawn, because we didn’t go anywhere.
“We can’t!” I yelled back.
“Then bounce up and down, and I’ll keep pushing.” Hmm. Bouncing. I could do that.
As soon as I started seriously bouncing, the raft lurched forward, and we were free. But then Matt bounced down the center of the raft and almost knocked Fawn into the water. He gently lifted her up by the arm.
“Sorry about that,” Matt said. “I had to dive in the raft so you ladies wouldn’t go down the river without me.” Matt helped Fawn back to her seat, kneeled down, and looked into her eyes. “Are you hurt?”
“I’m fine.” Fawn blushed. She picked up her paddle. “Thanks for the help. When do we get to the hard stuff?”
Fawn is so tough.
“Now,” Matt said.