Own Private Idaho...

We had such a fun weekend! On Friday we saw Batman: The Dark Knight--phenomenal! On Saturday we hooked up with some friends who took us rafting on the lower Payette River. We launched at the point where the n. fork meets the s. fork. Josh and a buddy jumped into the river from a bridge that was about 20 feet above the water...the drop wasn't bad...the freezing water from the s. fork was! We rafted down approximately 10 miles and navigated our way through 8 class 2 & 3 rapids (class 6 is the biggest degree). We rode "the bull" and through some of the rapids the passengers of all the rafts would jump in and "swim" the rapids leaving their boats un-manned. It was absolutely amazing scenery and such a blast!

When we reached our take out point, we weren't quite finished with the water. There was a bend by us and the water picked up speed, rushed by about 30 feet and then got washed back up stream creating a small race track for "swimmers." We strapped on our life jackets and swam into the current. There were many whirlpools that would suck us under for a second the pop us back up before the upstream current would take us back upstream to do it all over again (are you picturing this yet?) The purpose of this was to get sucked under the deepest and to spin the fastest in the whirlpool... as my mom faints on her study floor reading this! The fun lasted almost an hour and if your thinking that we are a bunch of irresponsible children...our 50+ year old guides (parents of our friends) Vance and Elizabeth have been doing this for the last 10 years. It was a great time and it is so fun to enjoy the eastern side of this beautiful state.