July 13 - Raft trip

I wont be able to keep up the project 365 this week. My camera may well be destroyed, and if not it's at least out of commision for a few days. It got wet in the river yesterday wehn we went rafting. I did such a good job keeping it safe for the most part, until we had a disaster. But more on that in a bit.

So, Nathan and I and Jared went rafting yesterday with Nathan's sister and her dog. We used the raft that Nathan bought a couple of summers ago when we were living in apartments right along the Tualitin river. We used it a lot that summer. The next summer I was pregnant and I didn't go on it much, and we haven't used it since Jared was born. So he sold it to his sister because she's young and more able to use it. We went with her yesterday though.

It was perfect weather for rafting. Hot. So being on the water was great. The current was great too and the rapids mild. We were even able to take turns swimming is the cutest little lagoon we stopped at. It was great. The only problem was we didn't really check out the river route very well. We had a begining and end point with cars parked at both points, but didn't know how much the river actually winded and therefore how long it would take. Consequently, we were on the river for 6 hours! Jared did well considering. he did get quite cranky there for a while but was able to take a nap finally and he nursed twice.

Then we got to the bad part of the trip. Towards the end we came to some rapids that were really extreme. There was a fall tree in the middle and a broken raft hanging over it as a warning, but unfortunately we didn't realize the danger until it was too late and got swept into some branches with the extreme current pushing us from behind. Nathan got out to try to push us off the branches, but couldn't. While he was trying a part of the raft went under, filling it with water and catapulting me and Jared out! I'm not sure if Jared actually went under the water. I know I did and the first thing I did was push him upward. He was saved by his life jacket though and got stopped by the shore. Once I was able to get steady I was able to get to him. It was really scary though. He was very panicked. As was Nathan. He said one minute I was there and the next we were both gone and he thought he'd lost his family!

Jared's okay though. Once we got the raft out of the water (which was really hard) and he got to nurse for a while he seemed like his old self again, playing with the grass and laughing at the dog. The dog was fine too, by the way, as was Tera and Nathan. Tera got swept down the river farther then any of us and hit her head, but not too hard. She has a little scratch on her face. It was a good thing it was her and not Nathan, Jared or me though. I needed to be there to get Jared and Nathan needed to help me get the raft out of the water (which I could not do alone). So we were really blessed that it all happened the way it did. It could have been a lot worse. In fact even the spot of branches we got caught on was probably the safest place we could be. It was near the shore and at the begining of the rapids, so we could get out of the river easily and the raft was not popped. We didn't even loose any possessions aside from one ore! Of course the camera got completely soaked and may be damaged beyond repair, but we'll have to see in a couple days after its had time to dry out. I was able to get the batteries out pretty quickly. The fact that the raft was undamaged was wonderful too, because we still had a ways to go til we got to our car. But we were able to get there before the sun set and it got too cold!

We said lots of prayers of thanksgiving that we are all safe and feel very blessed. And really the day hasn't completely deterred me from rafting again. We'll just wait til Jared can swim! Oh and that life jacket totally saved his life!

Here are some of the fun pictures before we had out accident. We had a lot of fun jumping in the water and taking pictures of it!