We left Fruita this morning headed for Glenwood Springs! It was the first time I’d driven east since June! It was about a 100 miles from Fruita to Glenwood Springs along I-70 so I’m thinking of the next 2 days as hitting the snooze button on the trip home! I’m heading east, but not quite yet. Dad says that I-70 from the Utah border to Denver is the prettiest stretch of highway in the whole US. Today I got the 1st half of that, Mon I’ll get to drive the rest! One last hurrah before Kansas.
Glenwood Springs is back in the mountains! It’s a wee bit cooler here, although this afternoon was hot! And the mountains are big and it’s not a desert! We are staying at a resort and they have tons to do! Ziplines, rafting trips, bike shuttles up Glenwood Canyon.
We were debating going on a rafting trip but I thought the Sea Eagle could handle the river and wanted to try floating it down. The problem was that Dad didn’t have an appropriate boat for whitewater rafting. We investigated renting a ducky for him but it wasn’t going to work. We then decided to do it ourselves. We could launch the kayak right in our campground and float to a boat ramp in a city park in Glenwood Springs. We talked to a guy in the campground why said this section of the river was perfect for an inflatable kayak – just some light Class II rapids in a few spots.
We decided that we would see if we would both fit in the Sea Eagle – it was made to hold 2 people, but we only have one seat.
We hauled the Sea Eagle down to the boat ramp and inflated it!
(I apologize for my crazy outfit! I look like I belong on the side of the highway directing traffic around a construction zone! LOL!)
Almost all inflated!
After we got it inflated we hauled it to the water.
The actual launching was quite humorous.
We got the boat in the water and Dad got in. Then I went to get in only I tripped on a rock and went for a swim! The water was cold! Finally I got in the boat, but we were stuck on a rock! So I got out to push us off. Once we were off the rock I climbed back in the boat, only to have Dad start yelling about his pants getting wet! I thought he’d closed the drain plug and he thought I’d closed it! Both of us got out of the boat dumped the water out then closed the drain plug. Meanwhile all the people on the shore were getting their money’s worth in entertainment! LOL!
Finally, we were heading down the river!
The float was nice! It was only a few miles and there were some spots with rough water. We got stuck on one rock, but it wasn’t too hard to get off! The other stuff the boat just floated right over! We did hit one wave pretty hard and I got soaked but it was ok!
We were almost to the end when the thunder started rumbling! It was loud and echo-y in the canyon! We paddled a bit faster!
We made it to the take out spot before the storm got bad! In fact, the storm never really got bad!
Very cool to have our own boat that will float us down the Colorado River!
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