What I did on my summer vacation:

KARMA UPDATE: (July 13, 2007)

Bryan at Reo Rafting found this entry some time ago, and today he wanted to make sure that I had a fresh experience in which to base my rafting adventures on! I want to thank Bryan for giving me the opportunity to go on another trip to his resort, and hopefully have a fabulous time, this time around.

There’s nothing quite like an exhilerating trip down some class 4 rapids on a long weekend!

The roadtrip up to Lytton was enjoyable — Vern, Michael and I had no shortage of topics to discuss, and the magazines I’d brought along for the inevitable moments of quiet contemplation, never got opened.  Surprisingly, the traffic was light for a long weekend, and we made it up to Reo Rafting resort in good time.  So good, in fact, that we had to wait an hour and a half before the ‘trading post’ opened to let us check in.

As I’d been there before, I knew the drill — We found a camping area that was free, and set up our tents and accessories.  Soon after, we cracked open a beer each and enjoyed the late afternoon sun.

After we’d checked in, and paid the remaining fees, we headed back to our camping area to get ready for dinner… And, surprise, surprise, we ran into my brother’s friend Trevor and his girlfriend setting up their tent and badminton net in the same area.  Too funny!  They’d been on the river that day, and had enjoyed their time on the rapids.

After dinner, we made our way down to the firepit area, where we enjoyed a little live guitar, and then were barraged with conversation that none of the 3 of us found that we were at all interested in.  The topics included Rohipnol, getting G into unopened beer cans, beating people up, and similar ugliness.  By 11 or so, the 3 of us had had enough of this, and the blaring music from a truck which had pulled up to the fire area.  We went to bed.

The next morning, we took it easy, enjoyed sleeping in until 9:30 (err, Noon in Vern’s case) and sauntered down to lunch at 1pm.  Afterwards, we suited up for our double trip down Nahatlatch Canyon, where we soon realized that our ‘guide’ was kinda mean, and certainly not the fun-loving, adventure seeking, smiling guide we’d had up in Whistler… No… This guy deliberately made us paddle head-on into huge rocks on 3 separate occasions, berated Vern for not paddling enough, and generally wasn’t engaging or enjoyable to be around.

And, on top of that, the Reo crew made us, for no apparent reason, jump out of the perfectly good rafts and swim to shore.  Keep in mind, it’s September, and the water levels are low… I bashed my knee and lower leg on a sharp rock just below the surface, and my breath caught from the pain.  I could barely move, let alone swim to shore.  I made it, just before rounding the bend into the rapids.

The rest of the trip, my leg ached… Which did put a damper on the adventure, but thankfully, I was able to enjoy it nonetheless.  What I can say, is that I found the Reo Rafting crew, other than a few members, to be edgy, annoyed, grumpy, and downright rude.  I’ll never go back to that resort again.  Why would I, after that experience, when there are so many other choices for rafting in the area?

All-in-all, though, I really enjoyed my weekend.  It was nice to have Vern along, and have an enjoyable time outside of work, and Michael and I thoroughly enjoyed the downtime the weekend gave us.

…I hope everyone else had a fantastic weekend, too!  Now, it’s just a few short weeks until we’re off to Saltspring Island!