Rail and Raft

Just to entertain myself – I went looking for rafting in the Colorado Springs area.

Hello! The Arkansas River is just up the road and there are more than a few rafting companies out of Canon City. Did I want to do Class IV & V rapids? I don’t think so. Class II to III are much more to my liking. Plus there is always the chance (extremely high as it turns out) of being in a raft with a load of people having their first experience on a river.  Class II & III are one thing – higher difficulty rapids increases my chance of taking an unwanted swim…

So I emailed off to several firms and Raft Masters replied – so that is where I booked. Canon City isn’t that far and turned out to be not difficult at all to find. In the morning I took a ride on the Royal Gorge Railway.

We started at the Station –

and headed up the Gorge. I thought that I could see something from the Dome Car. Turned out that really was the location for food and it wasn’t like I was looking to eat. Instead – I did the entire 12 miles out and 12 back in the open air car.

which looks like this

which looks like this

the morning picture gallery

There are a number of raft companies on the Arkansas River as you can see.

After lunch, we headed out to the Big Horn Sheep Canyon. There were six of us – a couple from outside Austin, a family of three from Austin (just random assignments – go figure) and me. I was the only one of us six who had rafted before. Our guide was a Noah in his third year of guiding.

Funny thing – I was tired when I returned to Ft Carson

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About Holly

fiber person - knitter, spinner, weaver who spent 33 years being a military officer to fund the above. And home. And family. Sewing and quilting projects are also in the stash. After living again in Heidelberg after retiring (finally) from the U.S. Army May 2011, we moved to the US ~ Dec 2015. Something about being over 65 and access to health care. It also might have had to do with finding a buyer for our house. Allegedly this will provide me a home base in the same country as our four adult children, all of whom I adore, so that I can drive them totally insane. Considerations of time to knit down the stash…(right, and if you believe that…) and spin and .... There is now actually enough time to do a bit of consulting, editing. Even more amazing - we have only one household again. As long as everyone understands that I still, 40 years into our marriage, don't do kitchens or bathrooms. For that matter, not being a golden retriever, I don't do slippers or newspapers either. I don’t miss either the military or full-time clinical practice. Limiting my public health/travel med/consulting and lecturing to “when I feel like it” has let me happily spend my pension cruising, stash enhancing (oops), arguing with the DH about where we are going to travel next and book buying. Life is good!
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One Response to Rail and Raft

  1. Matt says:

    Awesome photos Holly! Looks like a great day on the river – thanks for sharing.

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