Day 19

As Dave Sees It!

As Framp Remembers It!

Marble Canyon Lodge provided a very restful sleep in a nice air conditioned room. The day before when we arrived I got to shop in the tuck shop that seemed to have everything. I decided to buy myself a bandana thing that is like a bag with the end not sewn shut and a strap to hold me sunglass on my head. We had a great dinner at the Lodge. I had chicken fried steak.....yummy! Davey had the strip loin and he seemed to enjoy it.

This morning we had a lovely breakfast and then went to meet our river guide and swampers. I had already asked some other river rafting people if they thought I would need the fleece hoodie I had purchased for the trip. They thought not as the temperature at the bottom of the canyon was over 100 ᵒ F., so I didn’t ask Clint, Leah or Ted in case they gave me a different answer – I did not want to hump anything extra out of the canyon.

At Marble Canyon Lodge, we met Suzanne, then the Putmans, Tyler, Michelle, Shelby (20), Amy (18) and Tim (17). We also were introduced to Gerry and his two children, Alexis (13) and Gerry (11). We loaded up in the van and set off to Lee’s Ferry to meet the rest of the people. We waited quite a while for the folks from Los Vegas to arrive but it gave us a chance to get to know each other a little bit. Mary, Martin and their two children, Hanna (13) and Jacob (10), arrived before the Los Vegas crew. The van from Los Vegas brought Steve and his grown sons, Scott and James, Fred and his son, Ben (20), Dror and Jonathon (10) and to round out the trip two lovely ladies from Edmonton, Anna and Jasmine. Tim was the river guide that brought the people from Los Vegas.

We piled into the rafts.

Clint was the river guide and Leah was the swamper on the raft I was on. Tim and Ted  were on team on the other raft. We were off!

We stopped for lunch and the well oiled team of swampers and river guides got a table full of food set out for us to make our sandwiches and snacks (hot food was only served at dinner time). Clint, the trip leader, explained that we had to pee into the river and Leah would be available to help  “explain techniques” to the women! Too cute.

Back in the boat for more white water and rafting until it was time to make camp. We all helped unload our waterproof bags, the cots, the chairs, the kitchen and the pails for water.

 It was at this camp that we were introduced to OSCER, our toilet. Let’s just say it could have been worse.

This is the view from my cot.

The moon was so bright at 4:00 in the morning that it woke me up (which was good because there was no line for OSCER).

Dinner was great and tomorrow is an other day