Floating Down the River

Last month, my brother called and told me that Justin and I were going on a float trip the weekend of August 13.  Oh really, we were???

My brother had just finished his first-ever float trip and the group was already making plans for a follow-up trip...thus, he and everyone else had already decided that we were joining them!

I grew up on the Republican River and I have to say, we never once floated it so I was curious to see what the almighty Republican was like.  On occassion, we'd fish the river but aside from that, I never really "experienced" it.  My major memory of the river was the battle between Kansas and Nebraska when Nebraska violated the Republican River Compact.  Being the daughter of a farmer who's land is heavily irrigated, this was a big issue in our household!

A more recent issue--If you have been following the problem involving bodies of water in Kansas this summer, you'll know most of them have been plagued with Blue Green Algae.  The presence of the algae has forced many area lakes to shut down until the problem was solved.

So when we found out the Republican was plagued with the algae, did it stop us from floating down the river?!  Not at all!  Are we stupid?  Maybe :-)  But really, it was kinda like going to Mexico--just don't drink the water!!!!

Yeah, check out that lovely green water!  And that's in the "clear" area...there were sections that were bright green and STUNK to high heaven!  So what did we do?  Hung around for a good 45 minutes so that the guys could carve initials into a huge "cliff" of rock banking.  Once again, are we stupid?  Maybe!

All in all, it was a blast...and super relaxing!  There were about 30 of us, ranging in age from 55 to 5.  We put the rafts in just outside of Clyde and got out just south of Clifton--I would guess the float was about 6-7 miles long.  Most of the water was only knee-deep so we were able to float without getting "high-centered" too often.  Russ, the ringleader, had fine tuned all the plans...there were flat bottom boats equipped with umbrellas to carry ice, adult beverages, food, shoes, clothes, you name it.  They even managed to hang a boom-box from the umbrella so we had tunes for our ride!

Unfortunately, I am an idiot and only applied sunscreen to my shoulders...and I didn't even apply it very well, at that.  After 6 hours in the water, I was a bit red!  Even my fair-skinned husband (haha!) got a bit of sun on his back...and yes, black people do "sunburn" and yes, they do get tan lines!   I'm counting down the days until my legs and chest start peeling--nothing better than looking like a lizard when I report back to school, right?!

It's been a while since I included a music video, so I thought the Doobie Brother's "Black Water" might be an appropriate choice (even though our water was green--wink wink).  And yes, I realize it's about the mighty Mississippi and not the Republican, but play along folks :-)