8-3-13

{Provo River Rafting}

A rafting trip down the Provo River was a must with the Emmertsons this summer. We rented two rafts from the BYU recreation department and made our way up Provo Canyon for a day of fun. I know I said yesterday was my favorite day, but today was right up there with it...
For our first trip down, Ricky and I rafted with Hayden, Lance, and Payton. The others: Annie, Trent, Taylor, Riley, Brant, and Gavin rode in what became known as "The Party Raft".
A few scenes from our first trip down the river...
This picture was taken by Annie from their raft right before they ran into this group of low-hanging trees. Unfortunately, Annie ducked too low, was thrown from the boat, dragged for several miles, was pulled back in by Trent, who revived her and basically saved her life!!! Not really, but she was thrown, dragged a few yards, and had to jump back in...
The party raft takes a break after the near-drowning incident...
When we got to Vivian Park, we dragged the rafts out of the water and ate a picnic lunch at the park...
The way this works is: Ricky and Brant pick up the rafts at BYU in the truck, Trent drives a few kids in the Jeep, the rest of us ride in the Expedition... We leave the Jeep at Vivian Park with our picnic in it. (Luckily, no one stole it! This is Utah, after all, and President Monson played at this park as a little boy:)  ) Then we drive up a few miles where we put the boats in the water, raft down, eat lunch, Ricky and Trent go get the truck, load the rafts back up, and we all drive back up for another trip down. It's a pretty great little system. Here are some of our crew waiting at the park. Only waiting... otherwise, Lance would be buckled...

Today, though, Ricky and Brant had to take off after lunch for Brant's baseball team picnic. It was originally scheduled as a dinner and we were all going to go, but they changed it to the middle of the day after we had made rafting plans. Boo... I really wanted to see him get all of his awards, which included, ahem... Most RBIs by 10 more than the guy in second place!

...and here is Coach talking about how much he enjoyed coaching Brant and how he's the most "coachable" kid he's ever seen... super-cooperative, takes criticism, tries his best. Not bad for his first year playing!

Getting ready to launch for our second time down...

This time, Annie and I took Lance, Hayden, and Gavin down while Trent, Riley, Taylor, and Payton left us in their dust on the party boat. And that is why there are no pictures of them. Seriously, they were speedy fast!

These three were so funny collecting river rocks the whole time...
This was our view of them for most of the time...

...until we came across these horses on the river bank. So cool...

When we got to the bottom, Ricky and Brant were back and we loaded up and went home to rest...

Meanwhile in Alabama...
Bryan, Opa, and Uncle Terry took the boat out in the Gulf and, you know, just caught a few amberjack!!! Bryan texted Annie these pictures and we think they are AWESOME! Anybody want an amberjack???

So for today, water fun for all. From 6,200 feet above sea level in the Provo River, to those boys in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico at 0 feet... I'd say it was a good day!

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