Floating

A couple weeks ago we rounded up about seven people to float the river.  Two guys, five girls.  Most of us were from Spotted horse and the other two were from Camp Creek across the street.  We rented the inner tubes from a place in town.  They only had five tubes, but they did have an inflatable couch.  So they said we could rent that for the same price as two tubes.  So we did, because how many people can say they floated a river in a couch?!  We shoved all the tubes in my car and strapped the couch on top of my friend subaru:

Yup, for real.  Cup holders and everything.

We started the float together.  We tied all the tubes and couch together, but about 10 min into the trip the couch got stuck on a rock.  We untied ourselves and then the tubes went drifting away from us.  They was no real way to catch up and our rope would reach one another.  So alas, we were left behind.  I would have liked to all be together, but it was fine.  Alex and I had some great conversation about just about everything.

Oh ya, and the seat of the couch was slowly deflating, so we used our ottoman (which was not really for the couch but a different boat) as our seat.  This made it a little harder to balance and sit comfortably on the couch.  Most of the time there were no rapids to speak of.  Except for here and there and at those times we braced ourselves.  When the river was flat and calm we busted out some homemade granola and floated on by other fishermen and such.  Someone asked us where our big screen tv was.  I told him, he was looking at it.  Silly question sir.

At one point in our float i was readjusting and did a poor job, and it caused our couch to tip.  Throwing both of us into the frigid waters.  It was too hard to get into the couch while it was floating in the water, so we hung on to the couch and drifted with the current.  We had to wait about 5 min or so before making it to the shore to get readjusted and into the couch.  After that we tried not to move and were slowly warming up.

Since we were so far behind our friends, i thought they would be waiting for us all the pull out spot, but we saw them caught in an eddie, going nowhere.  We waived hey and continued on, since we had no way of stopping.  Moments later we too were caught in an eddie.  It was fun the first time spinning in a circle and then after about the 6th one we were ready to be out.  Somehow we escaped and continued on.  We saw an otter traveling alongside us.  The little guy was cute and all alone.  He didn't stay around for long and soon disappeared.

We made it to the pull out.  THe stupid thing about the pull out is that the current is incredibly strong and we did not plan very well.  So we had to dismount into the water and side swim through the current to the edge.  Meanwhile, we lost our ottoman.  It drifted into the water and out of sight.  We somehow made it to the shore tired and cold.  But with a big fat smile on our face.

Would i do this again?
                            

                                                                                                Heck, yes.

Part of the Snake River we floated

 And then later, i had to finish a roll of film, so we had some fun :)

Dreaming of days past