Day Twenty Two.....

.....well, so much for that idea.

Figuring that I haven't been white-water rafting for at least eight years now (Moab, 2001 was my last white-water rafting adventure), I reckoned that it was about time to once again hit river. So, booked a trip on the Rio Grande for Thursday the 22nd. Will and Cindy were really into the idea......so away we went.

Well......it was about a two-hour drive from Edgewood up to a place just outside of Taos, which would be the raft launch point....roughly 75 miles to the North and about a 1500 foot elevation gain.

KNEW something was dodgy when we left Edgewood and it was 58 degrees.......then 45 in Santa Fe.......then 38 in Espanola.....then, finally, hail and 34 degrees at the raft launch site.

(Ya really gotta trust me on this one: NO WAY IN HELL was I taking the digital camera on a white water rafting trip!!)

Errrmmm......no.

I mean, I enjoy cold and such, but this is water directly from the Rocky Mountains, thus, that water was probably 34 degrees......and with the ambient air temperature at 34 degrees WITH HAIL......this shit had "hypothermic exposure in one hour" written all over it.

Uhhhh.....no, this was NOT gonna work.

They were cool about it, though. I was fully expecting to lose my fiddy percent deposit for this, but they gave me a choice of dates for a re-do. That was really nice......not like I'm gonna be back there for the date that selected to re-do it, but I gave it to Will and Cindy. Hell.....with what THEY'VE put up with hosting me forra week, and the fact they've not been whitewatering before.....it was the obvious solution!

So, we just figgered it best to sit around the house and enjoy gin and tonics instead on a windy Thursday afternoon.....


-E-