Hopkins 4K for Cancer

July 13, 2005

DAY OFF
This morning JC, Justin and I woke up a little early to go for a bike ride. Ride on our day off? Are we crazy? We didn't want to break the habit of waking up early so we went for a nice easy ride for about 20 miles down the Coloroda river. It was absolutly beautiful and thankfully it wasn't too hot in the morning. After the ride we stopped at the grocery store to stock up on food for our upcoming camping days. Just as we figured out how to load up too many groceries on our bike, hanging off our Camelbak's and hanging off our arms we saw Dave at Moab Cyclery picking up our bikes so we asked him to cart our groceries home.

At 10 am we had the camping meeting. Chris passed a lot of pertinent information on to the group about all the bad things that could happen to us while we are camping. This included all of the different types of animals we could run into and how long we had until their various posions would injure or kill us. Hopefully everyone paid attention. We also talked about living in really close quarters with everyone. We set up all the tents and lit both the backpacking stove and the camping stove. Overall I think everyone is pretty excited about camping. I hope it stays that way after our first night.

After the meeting we 15 of us decided to go white water rafting. It was the perfect afternoon activity. We met our guide from Canyon Voyages at the main office where we signed waivers and paid for our trip. Then we headed out on the bus to the drop-off point on the Colorado river. Molly, our guide, was very knowledgable about the geography of the area and told us about the history of the river during the bus ride.

At the drop-off point we unloaded one larger rafting boat as well as two sea kayaks or "duckies." We had to fit our life jackets and do a little safety talk before we pushed off. The river is a perfect place to be on a hot afternoon in Moab. The water was so refreshing and the rapids were not too rough so most of us spent half of our time on the river just floating down it.

There were some rapids, supposedly class II, so we had to practice rowing together. Steve made a great coxswain helping both sides of the boat to row together. It was so nice to be working as a team off of our bikes, doing something completely different. Each of us had our turn in the "duckies" and we all had fun pushing people into the river and trying to do flips and bellyflops off of the big raft.

When it was finally time to leave the river we were exhasted and hungry but it was well worth it. Rafting down the Colorado river was a great way to spend our day off. Thanks to Molly of Canyon Voyages for putting up with us for 4 hours.

We arrived back at the First Baptist church for dinner not too soon. Everyone who was out on the river couldn't wait to eat. The youth group cooked us a wonderful spaghetti dinner followed by ice cream sandwiches. It was the perfect ending to a great day off and put everyone in a really good mood to head out to Green River tomorrow.

-Jenn S.