Several months ago, I saw a deal on Groupon for an overnight river rafting trip in Moab. It sounded like so much fun so we told our friends Kaley & Jeremy about it & decided we would all go together! We headed down July 30th & came home on August 1st.
The first day when we arrived, was definitely the hottest part of the day! We decided we would do some hiking & site-seeing.
{Tyler, Me, Kaley & Jeremy}
We did the hike up to the Delicate Arch, which was highest on my priorities of what I wanted to see while we were in Moab.
{Can you see us?}
{Kaley & Jeremy posing for a sun flare shot :)}
A couple other places we saw..
That evening we went to dinner at the Moab Brewery & then walked around & went in all the different shops along the street. We ended the night by grabbing some ice cream & were all thoroughly entertained with Kaley's disaster she created :)
We stayed the night in a tiny little cabin, and in the morning we headed straight to Red River Adventures to start our rafting trip.
I'm bummed I didn't take more pictures but it was just too risky pulling my camera out on the raft. The first day on the river was super chill. For most of the time, we didn't even wear our life jackets. We stopped for lunch on the side of the river - delicious turkey wraps with no details left out.
A couple hours later, we arrived at where we would camp for the night. We hung out & set up our tents & before we knew it dinner was ready. Pasta, veggies, salad & garlic bread. Cheesecake for dessert - definitely not what we expected to be eating while camping!
We hung out & got to know some of the other rafters & then as the sun went down the mosquitoes & gnats came out like a nightmare. They were driving me absolutely crazy so despite the fact that our tent was one million degrees - I just wanted to be inside of it.
We woke up to a "first breakfast" of yogurt, fruit & granola. Then a little bit later we had breakfast sandwiches. Definitely not my typical breakfast routine but we didn't know when we would be able to eat again since we were doing most of the river rapids on this day.
After we got all packed up, we were back on the river.
We were thrilled because this was going to be the most exciting part of our trip.
We went through several rapids & as we were rafting down the river we saw Danny Devito's house, a crazy old car that was upside down from a drunk driving accident several decades ago, & gorgeous scenery.
We approached a rapid called "Dead Dog" which was named because it killed a dog at one point in time.. sad {aren't dogs supposed to be good swimmers?}
At the beginning of the rapid, our guide decided we would try "surfing". I don't really want to try this ever again because I was instantly sucked into the river and stuck under the water being churned over and over. When it finally spit me out I was choking on water only to realize I was headed straight for the rocks & more rapids. I saw Tyler & Jeremy who had fallen in as well & they told me to swim towards the opposite side of the river. It was harder than I imagined it would be & even harder because I kept being hit in the face with more water as I was trying to swim in the rapids. I was starting to panic & I think that's what made me feel as though I was drowning.. scariest moment of my life thus far!
Tyler was lucky & got out quick by finding an eddy in the water. I gave up swimming on my stomach and went in the white water swimming position which is belly up with your legs out in front of you. As soon as I did this and started doing a butterfly motion with my arms I quickly found my way to the other side where I got out on the shore & I won't lie I was pretty upset!
Tyler says he is glad he found me before my guide did or else I probably would have ripped him a new one! haha.. That may be true.. I was worked up for a little while & didn't want to get back on the raft but I did knowing we would be done with the trip pretty soon.
When we got to the end of our trip they made us amazing BLTA's for lunch & then drove us back to downtown Moab. After tipping our guide & changing our clothes we were headed home!
We had a blast, despite my dramatic experience - I know I probably made it a bigger deal than it actually was anyway :)
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