A Week in Wyoming

As we drove away from Snake River, Wyoming Saku cried for good 30 minutes. It was sniffling rather than wailing but it showed how sad he was about the fact that he wasn't going to river rafting the next day. And he could watch the videos of rafting for hours. He loves to talk about the different rapids and said that he wishes he had a time machine that would make him six and he could be back in Wyoming again rafting. 

For the past eight years Troy’s family has gone to Snake River, Wyoming to camp and raft down the river. We have come four years, including this year. There were years when we spent all of Troy’s vacation time in Finland or a year when Troy switched jobs right in the end of July.

Troy loves being in Wyoming and going down the river. For me, the rafting is like skiing. When I do it, I like it, but I don’t get super excited or feel the need to do it. And I have to say that I am scared of the possibility of falling into the river. Troy took two falls into the river and it was enough for me to feel slightly panicky. 

The positive side of going down the river is that you get soaking wet and you feel as if you had taken a shower, so the week without a shower didn't leave us too stinky.  And I did go down the river three times and even paddled once.  Saku did one "trial run" and two full runs down the river and he loved it and thankfully, he stayed in the raft each time. Eerika got to float down for 10 minutes, and though she didn't really get upset that that was all she got, she was aware that she didn't get to do the whole rafting thing. She was happy to play with Cambree at the camp site.

Troy went on two bike rides in the canyon 20+ miler and 30+ miler.  I love the fact that he has his bike and he gets the feeling of accomplishment of doing this hard bike rides. I had big plans of walking every day, but ended up only doing two walks. On the other hand, I ate about 4 cookies each day. And Troy’s family had a good cooking set up so we are eating delicious camping meals. I ate too much. Way too much. However, Troy graciously said to me “who cares if you gain 50 pounds, you will be back in shape and running marathons soon”.  I love that man.

We had a great size tent and the kids were awesome about sleeping, but I slept miserably. An air mattress and a big belly didn't  work well or the fact that I really needed to pee in the middle of the night but climbing out of a tent to pee is not fun. Fortunately we went to bed before 10 with the kids and slept until 7:30sh so I got more quantity sleep even if the quality was lacking.

After a week in the woods, we had to get cleaned up and we headed to California for Patrick's wedding.