rapids and tires

So, one saturday several years ago we had a quad stake river rafting trip. most of the people met at five in the morning to car pool the hundred plus miles to the river. since i live in between the meeting place and the river, it was decided that they would pic me up so that i wasnt backtracking. my buddie tom was driving the car that was assigned to pic me up. since he had to stop to get me, we were well behind the rest of the convoy. so like any car filled with some awesome drivers would, we sped up to try and catch the convoy. after we had been traveling for about 10 minutes, i got a phone call from one of the other vehicles. my step mom ( her and my dad are the adult corrospondants for the single adults in their stake) knowing me and my buddies driving habits, had some one in her vehicle call and let us know that highway patrol was all over the place, so that we could keep and eye out for them and not get a ticket. after about 40 minutes we finaly caught up with the caravan. as we come up on the caravan we notice that they are goin particularly slow, we figure this is so we can catch up to them. my dad was driving the lead vehicle. we decided to pass all the other cars and pull even with the lead vehicle, so that they can see that we have caught up and that it is now ok to pick up the pace. after about 20 minutes, we grew tired of goin slow so we passed the lead car and headed off on our own. we eventualy started down this winding canyon road. after we had been goin down for several minutes, my buddy asked why my dad was driving so slow. we were coasting down the road at about 43 miles an hour and were gradually pulling away, with all the other cars still behind my dad. so i pulled out my phone and tried to call him to see why he was doin 40 in a 60. of course there was no reception. i kept trying till i finaly got reception. when he answered, i asked him if he had some fascination with goin 40 miles an hour. his reply was that he thought that was the speed limit. after the call, he sped up a little bit. eventualy we reached the rafting place, and we all piled out or the cars.

as we were all grouping up and organizing ourselves, the other drivers kept coming up to us and asking why my dad was driving so slow. aparently several of them had tried calling him as well but couldnt get through. we found this to be extremely entertaining. after much waiting and organizing, we were finaly ready to break into groups and load into the buses that would take us up the river to our starting point. me and several of my buddies quickly formed our group of 7, to ensure that we went down the river with each other, instead of getting stuck in a raft with less capable individuals. as we unloaded off the bus and started grouping up to get our rafts, one of the wilder guides saw our group and immediately claimed us. so off we headed down to the river bank to load into our raft. our guide gave us some quick instruction and we ran through some basic practice moves. we waited for the other rafts to shove off, and then headed down stream. due to my rafts superior rafting skills, and also the fact that we weighed more than any of the other rafts, gave us an advantage when it came to speed. we came racing up behind some of the other rafts, splashed there occupants and sped away before they could react. when we got to the fast rapid sections, our raft worked well together and was able to go down several of them backwards and one of them spinning the whole way down. towards the end, there was a section where we were allowed to jump out of the raft and swim. so of course i bailed over the side of the raft and had a swim. after we had gotten to the end we unloaded and pulled the rafts out of the water, and our guide offered to take our raft down again at a discounted price if we wanted to try some more stuff, so of course most of us did. the second time down consisted of some more technical manuvers, but was still a lot of fun. after the rafting we headed over to the local park where everyone else was already gathered. we enjoyed a small lunch, and everyone sorta did their own thing. some played croquet others bacci ball while still others played basketball, volley ball, and some even played catch.

after several hours of fun, we decided it was time to begin the long drive back. many others had already left, and we were the last of our group to go. on our way back, we had been traveling for about 30 minutes. we had all the windows down and the radio up. i was sitting in the back passenger seat with my eyes closed enjoying the wind and the tunes when all of a sudden i heard this horrible grinding noise. i quickly opened up my eyes to see that we were only inches from the canyon wall. the car then quickly pulled back onto the road. several yards later when the shoulder of the road was wide enough, we pulled off to inspect the damage. we had popped both passenger side tires, and of course we were in the middle of the canyon where there was no cell phone reception. we had one spare tire, but that wasnt enough to get us out of the canyon. my buddy tom who was driving decided to take one of the other guys with us and hike back till they either got cell reception, or made it to a gas station, and they were goin to leave me and his younger brother tanner with the car to at least change one of the tires, and then afterwords hike to the top of the ridge line and attempt to get reception there. luckily, bein the dorks that we are, tom and i both have our ham radio liscences, and on this particular trip we had both brought our ham radios. so he grabbed his radio and off they went back down the road. after several minutes of trying to work the mysterious volkswagon jack, the jack started to tilt while we were attempting to jack up the car. once it started to tilt, we decided that the best course of action would be to just let the jack down, but due to the new angle of the jack, the handle kept hitting the ground so we had to start digging a whole in the ground so that the jack handle would have clearance to unwind. after we had dug several inches into the ground, the handle started to hit stone. so we tried to dig the stone out. this was very time consuming. due to the lack of proper tools, we started using the tire iron and a flat head screw driver to chisel out peices of the stone. after about 20 min of this, i let tanner keep digging while i started the hike up to the top of the canyon.

the side was really sandy, with large rocks scattered about. when i got to the top i followed the ridgeline for a while in an attempt to find reception. of course there was no reception to be found. as i was walking along the ridgeline, tom called me on the ham radio. he let me know that they were about ten miles away at a gas station, and had found a guy that could get us another tire and bring it out to us, but he needed the tire size first. so i started heading back down to the car to get the tire size. when i got to the bottom i relayed the tire size and then went back to helping digg the rock out of the ground so that we could unwind the jack. after about another 20 minutes, tom returned ( they had hitchhiked back) and told us that the guy with the tire wanted 200 dollars for it, and that that was to much money. he had tried calling triple A , but since he didnt have it but his brother did, his brother had to be there to talk to them on the phone. so we switched partners, and they got a ride back to the gas station. while they were gone we finished digging out several large rocks and eventually got the jack out form under the car. about 30 min later they returned bringing gifts of water, rootbeer and a bag of corn chips. we had a 40 minute wait till the tow truck driver would be there to tow us back. once the tow truck driver arrived he was suprised to see that there were 4 of us, especially since his tow truck only had 3 extra seats. once the car was on the truck, we all piled in. i ended up sitting on the floor for the 80+ mile ride back. we spent most of the ride talking to the driver, swapping stories about recent adventures, and good times. when we started getting close to town we told the driver about the musical road and asked if he had ever been on it. ( there are only 2 in the world). since he hadnt been on it, and we hadnt reached our 100 mile limit, we took the tow truck down the musical road. it was pretty entertaining. afterwards he dropped the car off at my house and was again on his way. what an awesome saturday!