Rollin’ on the River

As my excuses have left the building...and the state..Team Drew with Kim and Tom have moved on for more adventures in Wyoming.  We have dropped 7 and picked up one.  George arrived yesterday for a week in the cooler mountain air....and adventure...  I have whiplash for the abrupt change in speed of our pace.  Yes, there will be repeat of some activities and a bunch of different ones, but since I have the control stick, nothing will be the same.  Eddie is in recovery...means he is napping as we have a Big Sky Brew Cruise this afternoon...four hours of beer tasting.  Like I said, we were have some adult adventures while George is here.  As promised, I have to tell you our rafting adventure story.

Before coming, I sent everyone a list/menu of activities that needed to prebooked with the rest more plug in based on energy and weather.  There are three different rafting companies in and around the entrance to Glacier National Park. All three have Glacier and Raft in their names, all are located on Highway 2 in West Glacier.    In this part of Montana the map of rivers and creeks looks like an old lady’s legs, with large bulging veins and spidery little veins everywhere you look...must be all  that glacier run off.  So, it stands to reason that you can choose your own rafting adventure based in age, ability and time of departure.  For those 3 years old and above, a 2.5-3 hour float trip in the Middle Fork of the Flathead River sounded like a winner, especially since our party of 9 would fill a raft (social distancing/family pod) and the bus ride to and from was a mask on affair.  Never mind that said 3 year old had been up since 5:30, hiked several miles and had maybe a 15 minute car nap before arriving at the appointed spot at 3:15.  Oh yeah, almost forgot...Team GO got lost again.  Figured that since the Rafting place was outside of the Park, we would be able to find it without much trouble...wrong.  Went to the wrong place.  Much to My amazement, Eddie was totally Zen/calm/curse free about me confusing the yellow and red bus Glacier rafting company, with the blue bus rafting company, which is not the solid red rafting company...must be that Team GO had a retired Episcopal priest (aka Tom) in the car...gee.  Team Drew found the blue rafting place, long before we did.  Lauren sent me a helpful pin drop from her AT&T phone, however, My Verizon phone got confused and fumbled the pin...we were back in  the line to enter the park...and I had already put our Senior NPS pass back in trunk...at the first (wrong) raft place...did not want it taken from the car... So, Tom hopped out (so high school fire drill at the red light, remember that?), Eddie popped the trunk and He (Tom) grabbed the black, not grey backpack.   Do you know how to make a preacher cuss?  Fire Drill do over...    Onward...Team GO...  We arrived, but there was still 30 minutes of standing around with our masks and comfortably warm life vests before boarding the short bus for the ride to the put in point.  

Our guide/paddler Josh, was a tall thin drink of water...if he drank beer it didn’t show..likewise for his toothpick legs and grasshopper arms...but he was a very child friendly paddler...and NOLA crabber in the colder months, go figure. Like the watery rides at an amusement park, I chose a seat/raft side near the back.  I still don’t like wet underwear.  Eli and Tom were in the wet underwear section in the front of the raft, with Lucy and Drew next.  Kim and I were third, with Eddie, Lauren and Grace in front of Josh.  Lauren has said early on, she figured Lucy for a raft nap.  If only.  I would loved to have been a fly on Josh’s wall when he and the other  raft guides compared story for evening.  His story would win. Hands down...no contest.    There where three rafts in this group.  We were in the lead raft...our little group put on quite the show.  Lucy was a ball of energy in the raft...forget just standing up, she wanted to jump up and down to watch the water come in and out of the self bailing holes in the bottom of the raft.  She was happiest when she was allowed overboard to be drug along the River current..as siblings do, Eli jumped over and hung on to the rope on the side...quite the circus raft for sure.  Forget there were eagles overhead, mountains, blue skies, crystal clear water and fish all around us. I am sure the two rafts behind us were high fiving each other for being on Raft 2 and 3.    There were gentle rapids (which Grace called “ruffles”)...but most of our time energy was spent trying to keep Lucy in the raft.  So, who has time to worry about the  Covid virus, when we have a good chance of giardia..parasite anyone?  

A quick check of Houston’s double threat of hurricanes (really? This is so 2020), wake up Eddie, and head to the meeting point for our beer tour.