The River of No Return

Our friends Kim and Lori Follis are visiting from Calgary and we are having a marvelous time. Yesterday we booked a guided rafting trip down one of the forks of the Salmon River, dubbed by Lewis and Clark and 'The River of No Return' because (farther down) it becomes narrow and unreturnable. What fun we had! We're doing that again - come and do it with us! It was a gorgeous, hot day; we slathered on the 45 sunscreen, tied on hats and life jackets and clambered into the big rubber boat.
Our guide for the day was named Grant, he is from Jerome, Idaho, where he was a salesman for 30 years; now he owns a spread along the banks of the Salmon River where he runs an outfitting....um...outfit. He has been running the river for many years and, since this is the season, he has run folks down every day for the past 24 days - so he really knows his stuff. The river changes with the fluctuations in the mountain runoff and this time of the season is fairly mild compared with even three weeks ago. Nevertheless, we navigated some great white water patches and got good and soaked. There is one rapid called 'Bone Crusher'. I was feeling a little wild so I rode through it sitting up on the prow of the boat holding onto the ropes 'cowgirl style'. My friends thought I was really courageous but it really wasn't that much of a ride. When the rubber boat and human get wet, they make a pretty slippery combination and I did actually plop backwards back into the boat halfway. Not such an intrepid cowgirl, after all. It was fun though.

We stopped at an old gold mining town for a tour, and farther down, ate lunch on a really hot sandy beach. The boys climbed a tall rock and jumped into a deep swimming hole. That was cool and machco! Later in the day we slid out of the boat and floated along beside the boat. That is Dave on the left and myself on the right; by our hats you would think it the other way around - but of course, mine is a Tilly! Such a fun day.