June 18th, 2010
5:30am: Wake up and take shower. Make sure all the last items are packed, including Lumpy Jr. Frantically search both cars and house for auto power converter to no avail.
6:10am: Wake Katie up. Already 10 minutes behind schedule. She gets up, dressed and we head out the door for the airport.
6:35am: Arrive at airport. Check in and check both bags, including the oversized bag that contains everyone's paddles and PFDs.
6:50am: Arrive at gate. Todd shows up, walking slowly. Not sure if he is awake yet. He only has one carryon. Renee took all the rest of his stuff the previous day.
7:20am: Boarded plane. Todd boarded with me, cause I am flying first class. hehe, Todd is in coach.
7:50am: Plane takes off. I slept for a little bit, but awaken when the flight attendant asks us what breakfast we want. I get the last omelet. Everyone else has to have yogurt. It was a good Omelet. They serve us 2 different rounds of drinks, even a snack. I hear Todd slept through his drink service and they didn't even offer any breakfast in coach.
9:50 am: Land in Denver. We are now 2 hours behind everyone else in Philly. We deboard and go to get luggage. The paddle bag takes forever to come out, and when it does, we head to the offsite Enterprise rental center. Todd takes the last spot on his bus, so I get on the following short bus. We end up getting a long minivan which will seat 7 comfortably with factory racks installed. Todd spends 15 minutes trying to find out if he got the correct gas plan. They weren't able to verify either way. When we hit the road, we find out that none of us have a GPS. Todd tries to use his Iphone as a GPS, but it's hard for him to drive and use it, and I don't even want to try and figure it out. We manage to make it to Confluence Kayaks, across the street from REI. We get our rental boats for the week. Todd gets a Red 4Fun, the new design. Renee's is a Yellow SuperHero. Mine is an Orange SuperStar. We figure out how to get the boats on the factory rack without denting the roof of the minivan.. We set out for Ryan's place (Renee's brother) following the direction Renee sent us. Unfortunately, by going to get the boats, we are already off track. Rather than back track to the highway, we decide to go old school and use a map. (For those of you who don't know, a map is a large sheet of paper that show the layout of streets). We stop by Ryan's and say hi to Renee. Unfortuanly Renee has to work and wait on her brother to get home from work.
1:00pm: Todd and I head out for Buena Vista where we are staying for the night. We figure out that apparently when we are talking we ineveitably miss our exits. After at least 4 wrong turns, we finally get on the correct road.
4:00pm: We arrive in Buena Vista and check in to our hotel. I call the small room with the twin bed. This way Ryan can get his own Queen and Todd and Renee get the other Queen.
5:00pm: Todd and I arrive at the river side, we drive, even though the river is only a 15 minute walk from the hotel. We gear up and put on the water for a little park-n-play. Todd tells me the first hole/wave is a little sticky on the river left side, but not too bad. I look at the hole and think, looks nasty to me. Neither one of us are really comforatable in the boats yet. So I say, "Show me how it's done Guinea Pig" Todd jumps into the hole and begins to get worked. After his third or forth roll, he seems ready to be done. He flips one last time and by the time he rolls up he is out of the hole. He catches an eddy on the far side fo the river. He is completely out of breath. Not only did he completely get work in the hole, but Buena Vista is 8,000 feet above sea level. There's not as much air up here. Watching Todd, I decide to not repeat his surf, but I go into the easier side of the hole. I go in and out about 5 or 6 times. I go in once more and it catches the edge of my nose and it flips me. I roll up. I start to feel water coming in my boat behind my back. My skirt has imploded. I yell, "I'm sinking" Todd laughs. The sinking boat drags me into the nasty part of the hole, and my boat quickly fills up with water. Once the boat is full, It just drifts under the pillow and I come out of the hole. I then paddle the submerged boat over to the side of the river and get out of the boat. Yep, no swim, even in a sunken boat. Once recovered, we played in some of the other holes, but left that hole alone.
6:30pm: Took out of river and walked 10 minutes back to car along path. By the time we got back to car, I was completely out of breath. This elevation is brutal. We let gear dry in the sun and humidless air. Then we headed back to hotel.
8:00pm: Renee and Ryan arrive to join us. We go out for dinner at a local home-style restaurant.
Over all it was a good start to a Colorado vacation.
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