A Lazy Day of Rafting

Saturday morning we headed up to Leavenworth, WA to spend the day wine tasting, eating, shopping, and enjoying all the little Bavarian Village had to offer. It was a gorgeous day, 80+ degrees and the sun was shining. I have a hard time entertaining myself in the car, so Jessie snapped some photos of me. She wanted to use the manual setting on my camera, so I made a face, that way you wouldn't think she screwed up the picture.


We stopped in Auburn @ our favorite breakfast spot EVER, the Sunbreak Cafe'. Then on the way up in the car, we may or may not have cracked roadies in the back seat so we could deal with Dan's driving. (Let me tell you a little aside story. Dan is my sister's boyfriend. They've been dating for a long time and he's like my brother. He's a great guy, he treats her really well. He's slightly goofy, but aside from that only has one flaw that I know of... his driving skillz are NIL. He drives like a 80+ year old raisin. Not only does he drive slowly, but he also weaves back and forth in his lane... not passing, just in his own lane. He drives an Xterra which have a short wheelbase anyway and so basically... what I'm getting at... its not much different than riding the Teacups @ Disneyland. ) So yes, we had beers in the back seat.






We had these amazing braught burgers @ Uncle Uli's, this little pub in town, they were loaded with kraut and goodness. I am definitely going to try to recreate it one day... perhaps with turkey braughts.

The next morning on a belly-full of fruit loops (for me at least, omg, I love sugary cereal and NEVER eat it) we headed off to meet our maker. The Wenatchee River.

And we may or may not have been wearing stunning wetsuits, so stunning in fact, that I have no words to describe their tight neopreneness. I do believe in this instance a picture speaks 1000 words:


and because I feel like it would be cheating if I showed you that picture (which does not include me because I was taking it) and did not show you a picture of me in all my wetsuit glory... here I am. (Note: My armpits are NOT hairy. I am slightly hippie, but I do shave my pits. They are shadows. I'm only noting this because I'm basically petrified to post this GODAWFUL picture of myself and God Forbid you see my chub through the suit, but then I have hairy pits on top of it... I didn't want you to think my mother was a complete huligan. My pits are shaven)

Ahem:
(you'll notice, due to the angle of the picture, my head looks quite puny. This however is not the case, I do not have a shrunken head).

White water rafting was a BLAST. That's not to say I wasn't hanging on for dear life and scared out of my ever-loving mind for 99.9% of the trip, but when it was all over I can definitely say it was fun... and I had a good time. And then I had a PBR. Or two. To take the edge off. Our guide had been doing it for 25 years, which is good. That made me feel slightly safer... but then he began making comments like, "you're all big people, big people tend to fall out of the boat easier." GOOD LORD. (I'm slightly ashamed to admit that over the first slight bump, I actually almost fell out of the boat... I didn't have the ebb and flow down yet and my balance wasn't ready for it... luckily, husband grabbed my lifejacket and threw me forward, I'm hoping no one else saw...)

Every time we'd come up on a rapid he'd start talking about "if you fall out..." Usually he was looking at me when he said this. But I'd be damned if I fell out of that boat, I had my feet so far in those foot stirrups and my hamstrings were so sore later from gripping my butt onto that blown up piece of vinyl... looking back there was no way I was going anywhere. (Also, anytime I felt unsteady, I just grabbed the back of Jack's lifejacket to steady myself. I'm sure he didn't mind).

But I made it out alive with all limbs intact.

I think I'd do it again... maybe after the shock of this first one wears off...