Right side Forward, Left side Back!

What a Day!!!!

Terry and I rafted the Royal Gorge today, one of the most class rivers in the world, in my opinion. And we never took a swim, through class IV rapids and the narrows, et al. We talked to several outfitters and chose the one who was shutting down most of their runs due to low water conditions. We respected that, and this was one of the few sections they were still running. It was low compared to June, but we stayed in the boat and only got stuck on one rock. Great guide Tyler was very experienced and told us stories between stroke stroke stroke commands. The gorge is non stop rapids, most very technical. We rerouted our trip south because of the weather forecasts, and we had perfect weather to go with our perfect rafting.

After rafting, we went a few miles east to Dakota Hot springs. Despite our conditioning and ever youthful minds, we were a bit kinked up and sore. I thought it was Tuesday, not Monday, and the recording said Clothes on Tuesday, so I thought that fit pretty well with my age group and outlook. When we got there, it was in fact still Monday, and there weren't many clothes. I think actually it is "closed" on Tuesday, not "clothes", because they drain the pool and clean it. No matter, it was wonderful, and us having clothes on was okay with everybody else who didn't. Everybody included Edgar the resident pool cat, who circled the pool seeking bodies to pet him. He didn't comment on my bathing suit one way or another.

We were going to park the RV there after floating our sore muscles away, but they said since they were "closed" on Tuesday, we couldn't stay; they recommended a truckers lot a mile away. Later they said we could stay, but by then we were entranced with the truck stop lot and not very entranced with the two guys left over from being cool in the 80's that ran the place and invited us to stay. They looked like they were still trying to be Don Johnson.

We arrived at the truckers lot to a sign that said we needed to buy fuel to stay free. No problem. We picked a spot in the middle of a big empty lot and proceeded to cook dinner. Mid dinner trucks began to arrive. They parked right next to us, on either side. Then they started noises. Maybe a/c, maybe generators, maybe reefers? I dunno, but we were very offended. Not enough to move, however. We were too mellow from a great day. We fell asleep to sounds like lawn mowers.