Royal Gorge, CO: White Water Rafting The Arkansas River

Another great day! And today started just like yesterday, with an early morning call from another relative. This time it was my Aunt Charlotte, who called to say hello, discuss Christopher's wedding, and check up on what everyone has been doing. Wow! It's been too long since we last talked and it was a lot of fun getting caught up with her.

Aunt Charlotte and I finished talking about 6:45 am (Colorado MST) so I decided to run over to The Garden of the Gods and get some photo's with the softer morning light. It's only about 1/2 mile from the campground so I grabbed the camera, a bottle of water, and took off.

What do you think I saw on my way there? Two young deer standing along the side of the road. I was past them before it fully hit me what I was seeing so I dove into a parking lot across the street and took a few photo's thinking they would take off any second. Instead they wandered around as if they owned the place. I pulled out and drove past them before pulling a u-turn and heading back to them. They were so calm I simply stopped in the street and was able to take a few more pictures from a much closer position. Too cool.

At the Garden of the Gods, the light had everything illuminated beautifully, including Balance Rock and the Kissing Camels. If I have to point out which photo is which I need to improve my photography skills.

Lots of people out jogging, bicycling, walking with and without dogs, and taking pictures. A few people were using ropes to climb these steep rock walls. Very special. I took a relaxing walk around a portion of the park and told MLA I want to go back there again tomorrow. Or maybe we'll head over to Red Rock Canyon which is on the other side of the main road.

After taking my fill of pictures I went back to the RV and took a nap. Tough day so far, huh?

We had reservations to go white water rafting on the Arkansas River for later in the day so we drove back out to Canon City and then to Royal Gorge. It's about an hour from Manitou Springs where we are staying and the drive takes you through several different types of terrain. Once we had paid for our trip, changed clothes, selected life vest and helmets, we had a short wait before boarding an old Blue Bell school bus that pulled a trailer loaded with our rubber rafts.

The lead guide addressed us from the front of the bus. First she welcomed us and she mixed in a lot of humor with our required briefing. She asked how many people had never done this before; about half the bus raised their hand. She said, "Don't worry about a thing; riding a school bus is very easy. Just hold onto the seat in front of you". She mixed a lot of corny jokes into the briefing and soon everyone was laughing and having a great time.

The white water rafting was mostly through class two and class three rapids; relatively tame however guaranteed to get you wet. Perfect for a day with temperatures close to 100 degrees. Actually it cooled off some when it clouded up; then it rained just as we ran the rapid named Shark's Tooth. We were already soaked from running the rapids so what's a little rain. In fact, it's only the first splash of water that feels cold, after that you get used to it and it starts to feel pretty good. Besides the rain only lasted about 10 minutes. Very cool.

At one point our raft got hung up on a rock and a couple of good Samaritans (other rafts) flew down the rapids hitting our raft, trying to 'bump' us off. No one from our raft ended up in the water however two other people were not so lucky. In fact we pulled one lady into our raft. First we welcomed her and then we told her she was our hostage. We asked her what she had to trade for her 'freedom'. We eventually released her when we found out her raft didn't have anything they could use for ransom.

Great scenery, cool water, a little exercise from paddling the rafts, and saving/capturing fellow rafters. What fun!

Towards the end of the trip we saw a snake hanging in the grass just above the water. Actually we only saw about 2 feet of this snake hanging over the water however the part we could see clearly had a diamond pattern on his back. Not sure what kind of snake it was but it sure looked like a diamond back rattle snake. We never got closer than 20 feet so couldn't tell for sure.... I thought it was a nice looking snake (I'm OK with them from a distance) although MLA did not agree with my assessment.

We've had a couple of action packed days and are looking forward to taking it easy for the next couple of days -- we'll see if that actually happens.

See Ya!