She's a Good Sport

I guess every family has their own vetting methods. The Pirkl's strap you to the front of a raft headed down a class 4 rapid and if you stay on, "you're a keeper".  =)  [it looks something like this:]

I heard "she's a good sport" a lot this weekend, if that tells you anything about the trip. [I've decided that "She's a good sport" really means you're lousy at something - but you don't complain much.] Here are some other highlights from the weekend:

• Given the 50 degree water - the rafting company offered to rent us wet-suits. Something about wearing a costume that 5 other people have pissed in this week seemed worse than being cold. [At the time]
• The guide's safety talk that preceded launch lasted almost as long as the rafting trip. I went ahead and drafted my will during half of it, in case I "was pinned under the big blue sombrero [i.e., raft]"; "got wacked in the head with the t-grip of someone's errant paddle" or "got sucked right out of a lifejacket not sufficiently tightened". [Ummmm...can't wait to get started??]
• Know what's better than putting up your first tent ever? Putting it up in the rain. The freezing rain. Only to find out later it's been set up downhill. Good times.
• "That wasn't a mule deer you saw outside your tent last night Kirk...that was me." [Any good vacation involves being mistaken for a mule deer.]
• I seemed to be the only one who brought pen and paper on the completely water-soaked raft. The other five blogs I wrote didn't survive "The Meat Grinder" at Whitehorse Rapids.....

And while it may not sound like it from this blog...it was a complete blast. At least the parts where I wasn't under the big blue sombrero.