Getting There is Half the fun

I wasn't sure what to expect when we made this trip. It was, for instance, my first time on a western river. And it was my first time staying at a military recreational facility (since I'm not military).

I guess I was expecting a military base and of course that's NOT what Ft. Tuthill is. My first clue was the teenage girls running around with the tiaras on their head.

A few room features that you may or may not have encountered :
o Military issue air conditioners/purifiers/fans. These fans are standard issue for most aircraft .... to provide propulsion.

o The disappearing shampoo bottle (your mileage may vary if Jack wasn't your roommate)

o The trick lock on the outside door ( still a mystery how I ever got in my room. Ryan had the same problem I recall ).

The trip began innocently enough with some Pepsi and gatorade loaded on the van (the pepsi would be left in the van until our return -- just the first sign that Jack was out to get me [NOTE: for the humor impaired, that's a joke]). My gatorade was left at the bottom of the river thanks to a faulty carabine (sp?)

Once we had loaded up, Laurel, our official driver and (I should note) volunteer fire fighter, and our token guide (token in the van, not on the river), Josh Mac Naughton secured (relatively speaking) our dry bags to the roof of the van. With that we piled in and head for Peach Springs off of the original Route 66 joining the Colorado river between Lake Powell and Lake Mead.

Several miles down we were starting to warm up to each other a bit when there was a loud snap followed by an even louder thump as one of the dry bags exited the vehicle!

Laurel quickly pulled over and backed up a bit. Josh jumped out and ran back and played dodge car while he ran across and picked up the bag and stood on the other side. Then waited and dodged back to our side. It turned out to be Ron's bag of course and apparently the only damage was his official "Ft. Tuthill" hot beverage mug.

That was the last of the adventures before the river except of course the next adventure. Joe was sitting in back thinking that the left rear tire sounded like it was out of balance when there was a loud THUNKA THUNKA THUNKA THUNKA .... the tread from the rear tire had torn away (although the tire didn't burst). In addition, the tire tread destroyed a part of the running board.

No problem. There's 12 of us. How hard could it be to change a tire ? Well that depends actually on a couple of cruicial details. The most crucial is CAN YOU GET THE REPLACEMENT TIRE OFF OF THE RACK that it's on ?

Nope ... not at first

Use the tire iron ? Yep .. doesn't fit

Use the tools in the van ? Yep ... none of the deep sockets fit and none of the short sockets are long enough.

Finally we make some progress when the 16 year old, Nick, produces a "tool" that can be used to get some leverage involved. Still having problems? Yep. Still having problems.

Ron suggests using bug spray which is used for lubricant.

What am I doing during all of this ? I'm having rock throwing contests with a 15 year old and eating cookies and chips and generally staying out of the way which is what I do best when there is serious work for three people and an extra nine or ten standing around.

Without further ado, we proceeded (with two bathroom / drink stops) to Peach Springs which is a small town on the Hualapai reservation. After our stop there we started into one of the many bonuses of this river trip -- free kidney stone treatment.

That's right. If you did show up for the raft trip with kidney stones, you were cured after forty-five minutes of pounding down the gravel road from Peach Springs out to the river.

We saw some wild burros on the drive down. These are remnants of burros that escaped from miners and other travelers back in the 1800s.

As we drove down the road, we also noticed that there was quite a bit of water on the road (I'd never rafted IN the van before) but we managed to stay on the road/stream until we reached the official jumping off point.

Most people's stuff was unloaded at that point in time, but my Pepsi and some of Frank's gatorade got stuck behind the jack (by Jack if you ask me) during our tire adventure.

Once we had carried our stuff to the river and visited Head Quarters (porta-potties set up nearby), we were ready to pull out onto the river.

Secured in the "sweep" boat with Jack and our raft guide DeAnna, I felt sure that I was ready for whatever the river had to offer. Ten feet later, I was proved wrong as Rico was out to see us off.

Bent over to cover himself, completely naked, Rico the River Ornament.