A River Raft Runs Down It

Thursday we floated down the Colorado River.  This was a challenge for me.  As many of you know, I spent a significant portion of my earlier life living in the outdoors, teaching and facilitating outdoor education courses that included rock climbing, backpacking, sea kayaking and rafting.  On one of those earlier rafting trips I was thrown from the raft and got my foot caught between two rocks under water.  Clearly I'm still here to talk about it, but...rafting in any shape or form since then has been something I have avoided.  Interestingly, while waiting for our river guide to bring us our PFDs, I overheard a few people talking about how people "panic when they fall out of the boat" and "it's the weak swimmers who get themselves stuck."  Well friends, I'm a fairly strong swimmer, and I wasn't panicking when I was thrown out of that boat 20+ years ago..well, not until my foot got stuck.  But, I was fairly nervous about floating down the river with people who seemed to have relatively narrow views about river rafting.  Fortunately, I wasn't in the same boat with those individuals.  I was in a boat with people who were calm and supportive; who "got" my trepidation and were willing to do whatever I needed to get through the ride.

It turned out to be a stupendous opportunity!  No, I'm not now in love with river rafting (truth is, I never was).  But, I now know that my lack of enthusiasm is more about my general dislike of river rafting, and not about fear.  Sure, we didn't really raft through anything more than Class 2 waters.  But, the experience was poignant.  

The rest of Thursday was an "off-the-bike" day, and I reveled in resting.  Along with two friends, I walked the streets of Moab in search of good coffee and a good bookstore.  Good coffee seemed to elude me in Moab, but, Back of Beyond Books was pure heaven!  As soon as Icrossed the threshold I knew I was in for a treat.  Of course, as expected, there were bookshelves loaded with books written by Edward Abbey and Wallace Stegner.  And, to my delight, I found a section devoted to my favorite writer, Terry Tempest Williams.  My enthusiasm for Williams' writing must have been clear to the owner of the shop who offered to show me some out-of-print material he had in the back of the store. He also told me about Terry's "new book coming out in december" and invited me back to the store for her book signing.  With clear disappointment in my voice, I told him, "I live in New York," to which he spritely responding, "You could fly back."

In the end I pre-ordered her book from him, and he graciously offered to have it inscribed and signed.  I'm still floating by the thought!