One of my colleagues, Tim, and his wife Linda, happened to be driving down from Montana to Wyoming to do some rafting for the weekend. The timing couldn't have been better, as we were actually planning to be there at the same time!
We hooked up with Tim and Linda on Friday evening, stopping by the grocery store for a few provisions and then heading down to the Alpine campground on the Wyoming/Idaho border.
The campsite was beautiful, on a small ledge above the Snake River flood plain.
We piled our vehicles into the site, chatted extensively with the loquacious camp hosts, and blew up the rafts.
Kim and I cooked jambalaya over the camp stove, and we sat around the campfire getting to know Tim's other friends who were camping with us (Bob, Mike, Erin, and her Mike).
The next morning, we left our Jeep at the downriver take out point, and put in at a nice spot called West Table
Tim and his buddies readied the rafts.
We shoved off into some pretty gentle water, and our much more experienced rafting friends noted that today would be more of a beer float, than any high-adrenaline whitewater rafting.
Meh, Kim and I didn't care.
We were on a boat, floating on a river, with good company, drinking beer, and enjoying some spectacular scenery.
In the sun, we were quite warm -- the shade was a different story, though. It could get quite chilly.
We saw at least a dozen eagles and ospreys monitoring our movements along the river. Really incredible birds!
The highlight of our raptor-watching occurred when an osprey defended its territory against a bald eagle, culminating in an incredible airborne fight over our heads!
The osprey (the smaller bird at the bottom) seemed to have won the battle, chasing the eagle far away!
Tim turned over the reins (er, oars) to me at some dangerless point during the float.
While I'm a rather experienced with a paddle and a kayak or a canoe, this puppy was a little different. Handling two huge, separate oars requires a bit of innate skill and experience. I fought it for a little while, but eventually got a beginner's hang of it. I think I could probably graduate to "novice" with a full day in the saddle :-) Still, I was happy to hand the oars back over to Tim, and let him guide us around.
I really enjoyed the 6 different microbrews we had over the two days of rafting. Tim brought a set of aluminum "growlers" to Snake River Brewery in Jackson and filled each one up with a new and interesting beer. I really like the aluminum growler idea. I'm going to try that one when I get back to Austin!
Saturday night, Tim, Linda, Kim, and I drove up to Jackson Hole to attend a concert... Austin's own Willie Nelson was playing a make-shift amphitheater set on the bottom slope of the Snow King ski resort. The weather and locale were both perfect for a Willie show!
Kim and I have both seen Willie a handful of times, but given our current traveling lifestyle, we figured Willie would be singing On the Road Again directly to us, and we couldn't pass up this opportunity.
I enjoyed the local suds, an American Pale Ale from the Grand Teton Brewing Company. The mountains you see behind the cup aren't the Tetons, but they're merely a few miles north in the same range.
Willie is 77 and still puts on a good show. It wasn't the best Willie show I've seen by a long shot, but still, we had a great time, and enjoyed the unique experience!
Day two on the river (Sunday) was much like the first. The rapids were very tame, however, in the afternoon, a tremendous head wind developed. Kim, Linda, and I were quite chilly. Tim was warm (I bet), as he rowed his butt off, trying to keep us moving downstream.
One of Tim's buddies, Mike, had a small Corgi puppy named Styler. Kim enjoy this little guy as much as he enjoyed the river.
I particularly enjoyed watching the kayakers play in the surf.
We stopped for lunch on a ledge just below a spot called Taco Hole, and I was able to watch them for a good hour.
On the lunch menu, we had elk steak...
We saw a few more eagles after lunch.
But as day two on the water came to a close, we were a bit colder than the previous day. We really enjoyed Linda's chicken curry and chocolate chip cookies for dinner, and spend a wonderful evening around the campfire.
:-Dustin
Hey! I wish I would have seen those bald eagles in the wild! I bet that was amazing! Jeremy also recently discovered the "growler" at the Chimes. You can fill it up for the price of the pitcher. He is looking for to game days!
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