It was a long weekend for the 4th of July this year, hot-hot-hot outside, and staying home and doing nothing in the heat was not an option. Cheryl didn't have plans either so at the last minute, I decided we needed to find something to do in/around fresh water, and we ended up spending the 4th in a raft on the Wenatchee River. We left Friday morning and stopped in Leavenworth for lunch. It must have been close to 100 degrees out and while Leavenworth is a cute little alpine town, we just didn't have it in us to walk around in the blazing sun and wander through looking at the shops and
things. Instead we continued straight through to Wenatchee and checked into our nicely air conditioned room at the Coast Hotel. Look, I admit it, we're wimps when it comes to the heat (and the cold. And if there are lots of bugs). We can power through when we need to,
we've been to Thailand together, after all, but we didn't really feel like walking around the booming metropolis that is [not] downtown Wenatchee so we got a few snacks from the health food store across the street and stayed in for the evening. We had to meet the river guide at 9am the next day so we got up early and stopped in the lovely little Anjou Bakery which I'd been to years ago in the town of Cashmere and got coffee and breakfast sandwiches, and then made our way to the meeting spot. A lot of people had the same idea we did for the 4th and there were enough people in the group to fill five rafts. We decided we wanted to go with the guide named Hudson who greeted us when we arrived, and pounced on a nice looking family of 4 from Virginia who were vacationing in the Northwest and suggested they go in Hudson's raft too.
We had a blast. The river wasn't running super-fast, mostly class II, I'd say, with a few thrilling class III parts that were really fun. The Virginians were nice company, Ray and Kathy were the mom and dad, and Tracy and Steven were their high-school and college-age daughter and son. Hudson helped us get to know each other by asking a lot of questions (mostly water-activity-related), and pointed out interesting things on the river (like Steve Miller's vacation house; we should have knocked on the door and solved the age-old mystery of what the hell a "pompitous of love" is), while teaching us how to paddle for maximum efficiency, and expertly steering our raft.
We stopped about a third of the way down for a lunch of sandwiches and lemonade and for a cooling swim. Then, we were back in the rafts and heading downstream. There were some pretty gnarly rapids on the last two thirds of the way, and two of the other rafts got stuck on the rocks and a couple people even went overboard. Hudson steered us toward one of the floaters and when we got our raft right next to him, I, employing the rescue technique Hudson had taught us, grabbed the lapels of his life jacket, pushed him down enough to gain some extra buoyancy, and then pulled him up and into the raft. Dude outweighed me by a good many pounds but he popped right up and right into our raft. I will note this heroic (my assessment) rescue in the unlikely event that I decide to join the Coast Guard.
That happened close to the end of the trip and we got out shortly thereafter and pulled out of the river back where our cars were parked. We were tired but exhilarated, as well as totally cooled off. We hit the road for home and got back in plenty of time for the fireworks.
things. Instead we continued straight through to Wenatchee and checked into our nicely air conditioned room at the Coast Hotel. Look, I admit it, we're wimps when it comes to the heat (and the cold. And if there are lots of bugs). We can power through when we need to, we've been to Thailand together, after all, but we didn't really feel like walking around the booming metropolis that is [not] downtown Wenatchee so we got a few snacks from the health food store across the street and stayed in for the evening. We had to meet the river guide at 9am the next day so we got up early and stopped in the lovely little Anjou Bakery which I'd been to years ago in the town of Cashmere and got coffee and breakfast sandwiches, and then made our way to the meeting spot. A lot of people had the same idea we did for the 4th and there were enough people in the group to fill five rafts. We decided we wanted to go with the guide named Hudson who greeted us when we arrived, and pounced on a nice looking family of 4 from Virginia who were vacationing in the Northwest and suggested they go in Hudson's raft too.
