West Coast -- Glacier, whitewater rafting

Friday morning we got up and had such an amazingly organized departure from the cabin that we actually arrived at our rafting pickup point ridiculously early. We signed in and then had time to kick around in the various shops in the vicinity. Around 10am we boarded the bus and had a rousing time on our ride up the river with the guides and the other folks rafting that day. I had a little trepidation when I looked around and the next littlest kid on the trip was a boy who was probably 10 or so. There were lots and lots of..... guys. Not even that many women on the bus. And here we were taking our tiny little girls on this adventure. Yikes! They seemed fine, not that worried, except that Evelyn was disconcerted that she couldn't understand the guide who was talking to us on the bus He was mostly shouting out trivia questions such as, what is the Montana state fish (Answer: the blackspotted cutthroat trout) and basically trying to get everyone pumped up. Once we got to the river, we were paired with two really nice couples from Scottsdale--Becca & Dave, and Bill & Sandy. The four of them sat in the front of the raft, J and I sat in the next row with Ev between us, and Nana and Bob took up the rear with Sierra in the middle. The first part of the day was just floating calmly down the flat part of the river. We were hoping to see some wildlife and we did see an eagle and some other interesting birds, but no bears or mountain goats or anything like that. At lunchtime the guides all put up these amazing collapsible grills on the beach, we all brought burnable wood for them and they were cooking steak and chicken burgers right there on the rocks (and veggieburgers for us rabbits, of course). They also had a really nice spread of other appetizers and salads. Great meal! Back in the boat, we hit the white water in the afternoon. Everyone was having fun, the girls even seemed enthusiastic through the biggest, roughest rapid--named the Bone Crusher. In the next rapid, however, (the Eye of the Needle) we hit a rock on the back right corner and lost Bob into the water. The way he described it later, he was paddling away and suddenly went up in the air. When he came down, there was no boat beneath him! He got safely and quickly back into the boat and was surprised that the water was not nearly as cold as he expected it to be. Unfortunately losing Grandpa Bob overboard was more than little Ev could handle. She was genuinely terrified and had a really hard time pulling herself back together after that. She cried quite a bit, but eventually was able to gain enough courage to make it through the rest of the ride. At the very end we even went over a tiny rapid and we all unanimously decided to name it the Evelyn Riffle. Meanwhile, Sierra got a huge kick out of the whitewater and loved every second of it--she wanted to go back up and do it again! Our raft guide was George, and he did a great job with both of the girls, having them help him shout out the paddling commands now and then. Evelyn was especially taken with him, I think even more after he helped her try to calm her nerves when she was so scared. She wanted to leave a note for him in the rafting office at the end of the trip, which she dictated to me: "Dear George--I love you. You helped me a lot. Even though I was scared in the raft, I holded on really tight. Thanks for helping me out of the boat. Love, Evelyn" Back at the rafting headquarters, we decided to buy the professional pictures they took of us going through the Bone Crusher rapids. Some really great shots there! We also got various t-shirts in the shop, including one for Bob depicting a dude flying out of a raft with the caption "I do all my own stunts". In the evening we worked on packing our suitcases for the trip home, racing against the clock because we wanted to watch the opening ceremonies of the Olympics. We feasted on haystacks as we watched, and the girls stayed up to see the whole thing--they were blown away! We all though London did a great job with the show.