White water rafting!

Today I went rafting! It was my host mom's (HM's) idea, and we spend several weeks getting everything organized. And today was finally the day.

So my host family, minus host brother #2 (HB2 - which I maybe shouldn't use, because isn't that a kind of pencil?), myself, 9 other interns, 2 friends-of-an-intern and 1 significant-other-of-an-intern drove out to Bighorn Sheep Canyon and spend 3 hours rafting 14 miles. I'd never gone rafting before, and it ended up being a lot of fun. And fortunately it was hot today (upper 90s) because the water, like all water here apparently, is runoff from the mountains and therefore very cold.

Anyway, there were 6 of us per raft plus the guide. It wasn't a particularly intense rafting experience, since none of rapids were above a 3, but quite a few of us (myself included) had never rafted before, so I can't say that was really a downside.

I'm told that we passed several bighorn sheep on the way down, but my raft only managed to see one. Still, it was exciting because it was up on a hill at the top of the canyon and you could see the silhouette outlined against the sky. Very picturesque and whatnot.

And the canyon itself was pretty. Somewhat brown, but lots of bushes and trees and dramatic rock formations - it looked exactly how a canyon in CO ought to look, especially one that had witnessed snipers and fighting over building the railroad through it. Very Tombstone, but without, you know, the town of Tombstone or the actual outlaws or Val Kilmer.

What was especially nice was that in places where the river was calmer and deeper, we got to get out and swim - although you still had to be careful of the current.

The rapids themselves were a lot of fun. Random rocks and water spray, and bumping and small drops; it was fun and a little exciting, and it just felt so good to be outside (which is not something I always embrace). And I didn't get sunburnt and afterwards we went to this hole in the wall hamburger place where I got a milkshake called "the grasshopper" that contained mint ice cream and oreo chunks. It was a kind of fabulous end to a Friday spent on a river, not in a cubicle.

I now feel like I've had a very CO-y experience, and even have something eventful to post about!