I recently learned that you have to float down the salt river here in Phoenix before leaving. With four weeks left in Arizona, my friends have developed a strong bucket list of “experiences I must have before I leave!” This is a short list with only 4 weeks left in the state but still a solid list of experiences. This weekend we started the festivities with a little salt river action. Now – I know what you are thinking – Salt River? Why not the Grand Canyon or something cool? Well, the Grand Canyon is on the list and will be addressed in 2 weeks but I trusted my friends and trusted their opinion of the salt river. So Saturday morning, we met at a local grocery store to grab some of the essential tubing supplies (water, snacks, and sunscreen) and headed east to the river. After 30 minutes or so of driving, we arrived at the tube rental place and got in line with hundreds of other river folk. At this point in time, we started to discuss the river and one of the only experienced natives remembered that he wanted to remind us to wear shoes out to the river. This comment caught my attention. “Why would we need shoes?” I asked. “Just in case you flip out of your tube on the rapids,” he replied. This really caught my attention. I asked a question or two more about the rapids and decided to just ignore his comment and I reassured myself that there was no need for shoes. I reasoned that the river couldn’t be that bad as over a thousand people would be floating down the river on tubes.
We continued to the river after collecting our supplies and got into the cold water. The river was awesome. People were everywhere and the water was great. It was like a massive lazy river. We floated for an hour and we were having a great time, enjoying the landscape and the good company. We had 10 floats for 8 people and 2 coolers. To make it easier on ourselves, we tied the tubes together with rope and I was located between the food cooler and the water cooler – great location.
About an hour and a half into the float I heard Ryan announce that the rapids were coming up and because my back was turned, I asked, “what rapids?” And as I said this I turned to see the rapids. He was right! We had a fork in the river ahead of us and most of the floats were swimming to the right of the fork but our group was heading for the left side. Ryan started to scream out, “swim to the right!” But it was too late and too difficult to move 10 floats. The river took us to the left. I yelled back to Ryan that it would be ok and to just let the river take us around. The water picked up and we noticed rocks coming up out of the water. Some of the girls started to scream as we bounced around from rock to rock. We looked to be doing just fine until I noticed another rock in front of me. I tried to quickly shift my weight to the right in hopes of avoiding the rock but I was too late. I hit this enormous boulder and proceeded to flip out of my tube. This was not your normal fall out of a tube flip – I completed an impressive Olympic-style back flip off of my tube and sent my tube into the air. My motivation was to save the drink in my hand, land on my feet, and quickly return to my tube. But the water was too strong and I lost my drink and my shirt to the river (it was tied around my head to block the sun). I tried to stand back up and finally managed to get my feet on a rock and stand. And from that vantage point, I had to watch my group and my tube float away. Fortunately for me, everyone in my group saw me flip out and saw me standing there in the rapids trying to figure out what to do next. Some of them looked worried while some of them couldn’t stop laughing. Let’s just say the friends who were laughing are not on my good list right now. But back to the story…There I was standing in the river with more tubes coming my direction. I quickly worked out of the way of the next group of tubes and I noticed another stranded friend. I helped her up and we started to walk through this rapids. This was not a simple task. The water kept knocking both of us over (along with other tubes) and the rocks made it impossible to swim. So we were stuck to beat our bodies up against rocks and tubes as we made our way out of the rapids. As I worked my way through the rapids, I wondered – where did my shirt go? Somehow I lost my shirt in all of this and at that point in time, I noticed a grey shirt stuck behind a rock. I was happy to realize that it was indeed my shirt. But just as I started to think my luck was turning around, I heard, “watch out!” I turned to see a tube coming down right on me. The tube took me out and sent me floating on my back down the river. The poor girl in front of me didn’t see me coming as I took out her right leg and sent her down the river with me.
Luckily, we got out of the rapids and got into the deeper, calmer waters and I noticed my friends had managed to pull to the side of the river. I worked my way over to the side and back to my tube. Exhausted and in pain, I climbed back on my tube and headed back down the river with my friends as they continued to make fun of me and laugh. Five hours later, we finished the river and went home to rest. And today, I find that every part of my body is sore, bruised, and in pain. But overall…great experience and good times. I don’t know that I will ever forget the salt river and my last month in Arizona. And neither will my body!
