Due to all of the recent storms, folks who weren’t too experienced with floating down rivers were forced to ride on either canoes or rafts. “I honestly didn’t really want to ride on the raft at first, I wanted to ride on my own personal kayak,” Leanne Bergsieker (12) said. “The lady who worked at the river told us the river was too high though and it was too dangerous for us to ride on our own personal kayaks without being too experienced. I ended up loving riding on the raft anyways, it was relaxing.”

The scenery of a river on a hot sunny day is gorgeous. Many times the river will split into two different paths which usually causes a decision to be made of taking the safer route, or the more dangerous route that has more scenery. “We always seemed to take the more dangerous routes when the river would split in two,” Julie Weiss, Sylvia Weiss’s mother, said. “The scenery always made the danger worth it, and the danger makes the float even more exciting.”

There was all sorts of wildlife everywhere along the river. The most popular during this float trip seemed to be baby turtles. The turtles were so small and easy to catch and were easily found along the banks of the river. It was very common to look over to another raft and see these folks holding a couple baby turtles just as well. The baby turtles also caused a lot of excitement for being so small compared to a normal-sized turtle.

Splash! Someone falls beside your raft suddenly out of nowhere. Kellen Weiss (10) and Levi Perry (11) jump into the river off a cliff. It was very common to see people of all different ages jumping off the surrounding cliffs of the river. “It takes awhile before you can actually get yourself to jump off a cliff,” Kellen Weiss (10) said. “The best thing you can do is not think about it and just run and jump into the river below you.”

Although float trips should include a lot of paddling, Sylvia Weiss and Leanne Bergsieker preferred to lay back and just enjoy the hot summer day on the river. “We kind of made Sylvia’s mom do most of the paddling,” Leanne Bergsieker said. “Sylvia and I took advantage of the hot summer day and laid back to relax, talk, and tan.”