Last weekend was July 24th, which is Pioneer Day. If you live in Utah or certain areas of Colorado, you probably know what that is... not many other people do. But, because we're in Utah, it's a state holiday and so people get that day off of work. This is also the weekend that the Fowers float down the Snake River in Wyoming. Apparently they've been doing this annual family trip for quite some time now. And now that I'm a Fowers, I got to come too.
Unfortunately not the whole clan was there. Jeff, Autumn, Cory, Angie, Mark, Stephanie, and corresponding families couldn't make it down, so it was Jessica, Matt, their boys, Jan, Don, Clayton, and me. So not the typical trip, but we still had fun.
Clayton's favorite missionary companion came in to town on Friday, and we went out to dinner with him and the Hernden's. It was kind of funny that Brad chose to go out to an Italian restaurant with the Hernden's there because I'm sure they're going to be getting plenty of that, seeing as they were leaving for Italy on Monday. After dinner we went to Farr's and got some ice cream, then went back to visit at the Hernden's. Clayton kept trying to get me to leave because we had to drive all the way to Wyoming that night, but his friend was quite entertaining, and it was going to be a while since we saw the Hernden's again. Eventually we got out of there and made the drive up.
It was one in the morning before we finally got up there. Thank goodness we had sent the tent and mattress up with Jessica so that when we got there, everything was ready for us. There were even mints on our pillows :o) And not just little ones either, Jessica left huge peppermint patties on our bed :o) I laughed. We crawled into bed and I noticed our heads were lower than our feet. I suggested that we turn ourselves around, but Clayton insisted it was fine. Well, I can sleep on pretty much anything, so although I did wake up a bit, I was able to get sleep. Clayton, on the other hand, was cold, uncomfortable, felt the blood rushing to his head, and therefore couldn't get to sleep until 3 am, and then only slept until 5 am. I won't even bother to say "I told you so."
Saturday we woke up, got our suits on, and went over to Matt's parent trailer for breakfast. It took us a while to get everyone ready to go rafting, but eventually we were heading down the road. It turns out that we didn't even float with many people from our family. With all of the sibling cancellations, we had to call in reinforcements to float with us. The first trip down we floated with Matt's brother and sister-in-law, one of Don's friends, and his son and daughter-in-law (JD and Cami).
The rafting trip started off a little slow, not a whole lot of rapids, not the swiftest pace, but the group was fun, so the ride was enjoyable. Don kept making sure I was having fun. Every time we went over anything, he'd ask me how I liked it :o) Don's been doing this trip so long, he knows every inch of the river (at least the part we go down) and acted as the perfect guide. I was nervous too, because I'd heard plenty of horror stories about people's experiences going down the river for the first time with him. The biggest rapids we came to are called the Big Kahuna, or something, and we hit those ones pretty well. Clayton was our navigator, he sat on the front of the raft (like he was riding a bull) and told Don how to enter the rapids. He had a pretty strong grip, because Big Kahuna would have knocked me off for sure. Luckily he just fell backward, more into the boat.
After we finished up the first run, we met up with the Jan and Jessica who drove the trucks to the get out point. We had lunch, and then changed groups. It was still Clayton, Don, Don's friend, JD, and me, but we swapped out Jeff and his wife for another Clayton and Don's friend's wife. (Yeah, is it that obvious that I forgot their names? Oops.) This float was much more calm. We went down slower, didn't get into any water fights with other rafts, and even the rapids seemed more calm. The calmer rapids meant we stayed drier, which was nice because I was FREEZING when we finished the first one, but it was less adventurous. Don't worry about the lack of adventure for too long, however, because at one of the places along the river, people like to climb the cliff and jump. Yeah, we pulled off there and JD and I jumped off. JD went first, and I apparently went too soon after he did, because they didn't have the rope ready in time to throw out to me. I hadn't even thought about needing a rope to pull me in after I jumped. Good thing there was another group there with a better rope than ours. They reeled me in. Just one jump for the two of us, and we were back on the river. We didn't hit Big Kahuna as well the second time, but it was still fun. Oh, and at the end, I rode up front like the hood ornament. Yeah, I really have no idea how Clayton stayed on through all the rapids. We went through a small one and my booty went inside the boat, I couldn't keep it on top.
After rafting we took the raft back, went and got cleaned up, then drove to Jackson for dinner and a show at Bar J's. It's also a Fowers family tradition to go there. I have to admit that I was disappointed in the food, but Clayton promises me that it gets better, because his didn't taste that great that night either, but it usually does. The show was pretty good. It's guys performing old western songs. I knew some of them thanks to Dad and Granddad :o) But there were some new ones too. They were performing live, so you got a good sense of their personality, and they threw in some humor too. I'm not going to lie, there were some times they just got annoying, but all in all, it wasn't that bad. And I know I would have enjoyed it better if I didn't have such a pounding head ache and such a bad stomach ache.
Sunday we woke up early, not sure what time church started, then after we were all ready, we found out it wasn't until 11. Lame. Once we got back from church, we packed it all up and came home.
There were still more things Clayton wanted to do while we were up there, but with the short amount of time we had, we just couldn't do it all. But it's okay, we'll be up there again :o)
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