It was 20 years ago today...

Saturday, June 24, 1989.

The day before, my friend Kelly and I took off work early and drove from Boulder, Colorado to the Royal Gorge (about a 4 hour drive). We went to the campground, which was basically a windswept field, and claimed some good spots near the fence. I had just bought my first tent and Thermarest, and my second sleeping bag (the first I had gotten by selling greeting cards when I was 8), and I was set. We drove over to the gorge and walked across the bridge to nowhere and talked excitedly about the trip.

In the morning, we had a quick breakfast and got dressed for the river trip. I had wanted to go whitewater rafting for years, but this was the first time the opportunity came up that made it easy. Our group of 21 people from work headed over to the rafting company building and listened to the lecture. We then piled into a bus and headed to the put-in. which was just a wide spot by the road.

When we got off the bus, they quickly herded us over to a pile of orange lifejackets and paddles. I don't remember if we got helmets, but I don't think we did. Next we went over to the boats and got into groups. I was in a raft with several of my coworkers and a couple of their family members.

Within just a few minutes, things went bad. We bumped a rock and one of our people fell out. His swim was uneventful, but we found out later that this meant that our guide had to buy a round of beer for all of the guides that night. It also scared the heck out of half the people on our boat. When we stopped for lunch, half of our crew was ready to quit because they felt that it was too dangerous. It took a little bit of convincing to get them to continue, but we all got back into the boat after lunch ready to go.

The big rapid of the day was Sunshine Falls, and we screwed up. When we hit the bottom of the drop, two of our crew fell out of the boat - including the guy who had fallen out earlier, who took his footcup with him this time, ripping it out of the boat. I fell into the middle of the boat, and tried to help us paddle to shore while on my knees. That was a big mistake. The guide was furious at the people who had fallen out, even more at the guy who took out the footcup, and decided to take it out on me for not grabbing them and for not getting back up onto the raft tube quickly enough.

Everyone was distraught, but we resolved as a group to do better. There were only a few rapids left, and we were going to enjoy them. The rest of the day was a lot of fun. After the trip, we went back to the rafting company place for dinner and to watch videos from our trip. We went back to camp and retired to bed early.

On the way home the next day, Kelly and I couldn't stop talking about how fun the trip had been and how we wanted to go again. I also remember seeing the first double rainbow of my life. The next Monday, I was unable to go to work. I was so badly sunburned on my hands, thighs, and ankles that I had to spend 2 days in an oatmeal bath. Despite the bad parts of the trip - the getting yelled at and the sunburn - I continued to go whitewater boating. I did 3 more trips that summer, including my first inflatable kayak trip, and then moved back to California. Colorado was just not for me.

Now, 20 years later, I have gone over 600 times and I hope to enjoy it for 20 more years. Thanks to everyone I've boated with, and especially thanks to Paul and Kelly for that first trip.