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One of the obligations that a family incurs is taking care of each other when the need arises as we grow older. That is where we are at in our lives. Linda's parents are at the age where they need her help. Linda has been doing a great job of becoming a caregiver. She's trying very hard to find a balance with varying degrees of success. We learn new things every day. There is no class or book that helps with this particular time of life. You just have to do your best. She is. This has not been easy but has become very necessary. As we work to make the necessary changes and each of us finds their place in this new "normal", our adventures may be a little closer to home.

How does one have adventures when you cannot leave the area?  I started digging around and found some very old VCR tapes of several trips I took back in the day. I pulled them out and discovered that if I use an old VCR, some peripheral devices and our computer, I could capture segments of the tapes and create videos. Here is one of the first creations I attempted.

Back in 1994, I was presented with a chance to raft the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon. This opportunity came up very fast and I had to make a decision to go within a two week period. My supervisor at North Idaho College, David Lindsay, was awesome and agreed that I should not miss this chance of a lifetime, so I committed to the trip and made the work arrangments. Unfortunately, Linda was unable to get that much time off from her teaching job. My next big decision was whether I should enjoy the trip as a passenger or take my Aire Puma (11’ 6” long) and row the big water myself. After a lot of negotiations, I was convinced by my friend, Steve Fitzgerald, that I could make the trip in my own boat. The arrangments being that if the water got too big for my Puma, we would fold it up and put the gear on Steve’s boat for the river miles that I could not complete. With the logistics complete, we loaded gear and drove to Flagstaff, Arizona and met up with the group of boaters. I had never met any of the people on the trip so I was taking another big step into the unknown. The trip had been named “A Journey Down Through Time” and we were totally committed. We put on at Lee’s Ferry on October 14th and took off on November 1st, 226 miles downriver at Diamond Creek, Arizona. I was able to row my boat 87.8 miles of the 226.  As we descended into the canyon, the white water got very large and on the day before Phantom Ranch, I flipped my boat or was ejected from my seat four times. My decision to fold up the boat came mostly due to the fact that every time I had to be pulled from the water, my rescue put all our boaters in danger. It was a hard decision. In the video note how Steve’s boat became loaded. His loaded boat was manageable, but you can see (watch the Crystal Rapid run) that we went through some holes that could have normally been avoided. I feel that due to the weight, we survived the run. In the video, we ran Badger Rapid, mile 7.8, House Rock Rapid, mile 17,  Hance Rapid, mile 76.5 (one of my ejection runs), and one other before my Phantom Ranch takeout at 87.8 miles. Notice the size of the water we ran. Also, know that this group was not into the beauty of the canyon as much as the river running itself. There were few vistas to add to the video or I would have done so. The VCR tapes that I found were not complete. The first tape recorded to a point and then went blank. If you enjoy this video and want to know the entire story of the trip, buy me a Dr. Pepper and I'll fill in all the gaps.