What do Caddy Shack parties and rafting down the Colorado River have in common? Actually, both involve drinking beer. It's true!
The Caddy Shack Party was outright madness - lots of bad plaid, dozens excellent golf shirts, a few dead-on Carl Spackers, some fun dogs, and beer served cold at three homes we stopped at. We had a riotous good time meeting Colorado people, all of whom are so nice and incredibly adventuresome...
The morning after the Caddy Shack Debacle we woke up and prepared for two days of rafting and camping. Seriously. When most people would be nursing hangovers, sleeping in and watching TNT, Colorado's finest pack their backpacks, strap everything else to rafts, buy a ton of domestic light beer and get out in the mountains.
A group of six - four teachers and five people from Illinois (weird!) - met in State Bridge, Colorado to park car No. 1, drove to Rancho Rafting Resort to park car No. 2, drove to Radium to park car No. 3 and hike all our gear up to out campsite. Then car No. 4 picked us up and delivered us all to Pump House where we launched our rafts. Phew!
We rafted to our campsite, right along the Colorado River. The water wasn't wild but we did go through many rapids and braved quite a few in pouring rain. New awesome friends Jason and Dave steered our rafts expertly, even when we all had to stand up and moon passing trains (which is an important Colorado River tradition).
And, we didn't just camp. We hiked to a hot spring from our campsite - about a 15 minute walk with a big climb up and a big climb down - which is especially tricky when you're carrying beer. We sat in bubbly, warm springs and even took a break from that to jump into the river off a little cliff nearby.
Today we visited the hot springs, solved the complicated riddle of how to get people and gear back to cars, and rafted down the river for four blissful hours. Then we drove back to Edwards, showered, ate dinner and now it's time to rest. Phew.
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