Dan and Alyssa's Excellent Adventure

Cabin Fever

Saturday afternoon Dan and I, along with our friends Scott and Debbie dropped our kids off and drove up near Mt. Hood to a cabin near Cooper's Spur. This was our last ditch effort to have some enjoyable free time before the kids start school on Tuesday. We feasted on fondue w/ bread, fruit and veggies, then is was off to the hot tubs for a nice soak as the stars came out. Once we were completely relaxed we went back inside for some games where the girls dominated in a fine game of pictionary. Around 2 am we called it a night and crawled into bed.

Here is the inside of our cozy cabin retreat. There was a really quaint
"vintage" stove, refrigerator combo kitchen area, a living/dining area,
two bedrooms, 2 bathrooms and a loft with 4 beds.

Our Fearless Rafting Crew

Today, after packing up our stuff, we all drove to Hood River for lunch, then over the bridge to Washington where we planned to raft down the White Salmon River. Here are some pictures taken by the rafting outfit, Zoller's Outdoor Odysseys. I will get my waterproof camera developed some time this week.

Back Row: Our guide JD, in the yellow vest, Scott, Debbie, Me and Dan.

The front row was a nice couple from Seattle, Washington.

Here we are hunkered way down inside the raft as we prepare to get
swallowed up by Husum Falls.

This incredible trip was highlighted by a vertical plunge over the legendary 10' high Husum Falls. Here we are going down the class 5 waterfall. Debbie and I are in the back, while Scott and Dan and going head-first into the drink.

Going...going...

And we're gone! It all happened so fast...We were holding on to the raft for dear life...quick, hold your breath!

...and resurfacing! Notice we didn't actually fall out of the raft, but we got just as drenched as if we did.

We made it!!!

In case you are wondering what is going through our minds as we are going down this huge rapid, perhaps these next 4 pictures will help sum up the experience:

We had a great time. We lucked out and got a really great guide. He told us a lot about the local landscape as we paddled down the river and he also gave us several opportunities to surf against the rapids as well as spin 360's all the way down a few of them. It was a blast!

On the way home, we stopped in Hood River to watch the wind surfers and the kite surfers...