MY RIVER RAFTING ADVENTURE - Travel Day

TALES FROM THE CANYON

August 17 – 24, 2022

Wednesday, August 17 – Travel Day

My friend Donna drove down from Alameda and showed up at my house around 7:20am. We had originally planned to leave at 7am sharp, but she was running a bit late and texted me at 6:10am when she was leaving, so I was expecting her to arrive exactly one hour later. 7:10am came and went, but I was busy getting last minute things together and making sure, for the millionth time, that I had everything on my checklist, so I missed her text when she was getting off the freeway. Finally, I heard her knock on the door, and I opened it greeting her with a wide grin, only to encounter a strange and confusing sight. There was Donna standing barefoot, her flip-flops flung to the side on the walkway, a trail of mud leading up to the estranged flip-flops, and Donna’s face registered anything but happiness and excitement about our trip. I had so many questions.

She proceeded to explain what I missed in her text, which was that she had gotten a ticket immediately after she exited the freeway for turning right at a “do not turn right on red” intersection. She was all muddy because after she received the ticket, she tried to explain to the police officer that she was unfamiliar with the area and did not see the signs indicating no turn on red because the rising morning sun hit the back of the sign just right so that she could not read it. He didn’t care. But after he gave her the ticket, she got out of her car, traipsed across some muddy ground that she did not notice until she was in the thick of it, and took a picture of the sun-blinded sign, so she could later fight it in court. (Little did she know that the mud was a precursor to what we would both be contending with for the next week.) Not the best way to begin a long-anticipated vacation. But wait! There’s more. . .

After we loaded up her car and each made one last trip to the bathroom, we were ON OUR WAY!

We made it as far as Casa de Fruta on Highway 152 just southeast of Gilroy, when her check engine and hybrid battery light came on. Uh-oh. In a split decision, we turned right around and headed back to my house to switch to my Subaru. In hindsight, we should have always planned to take my car because it’s newer, but her hybrid Honda was going to save us on gas money, so we thought that was a better choice. Luckily, this didn’t happen when we were further along. We had only been traveling for an hour, so it was an easy decision to head back. However, we lost over two hours of travel time when all was said and done, and it was going to take us at least 12 hours to reach our destination at the Cliff Dwellers Lodge in Marble Canyon, Arizona.

“Some of the best trips start out really wonky,” I kept telling Donna, and hoped that would be true for this one. “We’re fine.” I kept reassuring her (us). “We just have to be there by 8 o’clock tomorrow morning.” I insisted since the river tour company would be meeting us at 8:30am to pick us up and to take us to our launch site.

While I drove, Donna called the Cliff Dwellers Lodge to let them know that we would be arriving extremely late, and they said, “No problem.”

Fortunately, we also had no more problems during the remainder of our journey, despite the roads being long, the gas and pit stops were super-hot with triple-digit temperatures, and my butt hurt from sitting in that car for so long. We finally reached the lodge around 10:30pm. The place was dark and as quiet as a ghost town. (Literally, because we were out in the middle of desert-nowhere, and the theme music from the film, The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly kept playing on a loop in my brain.) Of course, the office was closed and there was no one around, but they left us a notice taped to the window with a map indicating where our room was located. When we parked and found our room, it was completely unlocked, and they left a lamp on for us. I guess in such a remote area, there was no fear of anyone coming in to steal the TV or mini fridge.

Donna and I took turns taking our last shower of the week, and I broke out the thermos of white wine I had packed. I knew we would need a little somethin’ after that long drive. No Wi-Fi, of course, and only Donna was able to get any cell reception with two bars barely showing. So we texted our peeps on her phone to let them know we had made it, and got into real beds for the last time before our week of camping at the bottom of the Grand Canyon.