Day 5 Rafting Down the Colorado River

When we had decided to go to Colorado for vacation, we had started to research some fun things to do. We decided to check into whether or not there was a family friendly float trip available. Robb found one outfitter that did a float trip that was appropriate for all ages and that didn't require us to do any of the paddling (Robb and I think that would be fun) but with Abby and Emmy we needed ultra tame! We had to meet at the drop in point about 2 hours away. We soon learned that there are still a lot of areas in the mountains where your phone doesn't work as a map and we struggled to find it a little bit but finally made it. Our guide was a guy about our age and he was nice but he didn't really seem like a kid person, which made me a little nervous. He fitted us all with life jackets and ran through all the safety rules. We had to learn what to do if the raft flipped or we fell out. Yikes! We also had to sign that we wouldn't hold him or the company responsible for injury or death. Great! He did reassure us that this trip was very tame and that none of those things would happen. We got in his old beat up van and headed to the water.

He brought a little inner tube that he tied behind the raft. He called it the time out tube but really he just thought the kids would think it was fun. I was liking him more already.

The kids were dying to get into the water until they felt how freezing cold it actually was. There was still snow in areas on the upper part of the mountains. It was beautiful as we made our way down the Colorado River!

We saw some paddle boarders taking the same route we were taking. I was impressed that they could stay up on paddle boards when some areas were a little bumpy from rocks. Not to mention, if you fell you would land on some pretty rough rocks!

All the kids really enjoyed it. The guide even let Emmy have a paddle and pretend to help him.

We got off at one area where an old cabin had once been. We looked around for a while and the kids collected fools gold rocks from the water.

Nick, our guide in the background.

Right after we say this cool rock formation we went around the next bend and Nick said to look for the hot springs that were coming up. We got more than we bargained for because as we found the hot springs we also saw a guy skinny dipping in it. The kids of course thought this was hilarious.

Caleb wasn't afraid to the cold water. He was going to ride in the time out tube.

We had a blast. The entire trip lasted about 4 hours. Nick showed us a great time and even though we found out that he didn't have kids and wasn't interested in having kids, he was really great to our whole family. We had a blast. This was probably my favorite thing that we did! When we were headed home we stopped in a tiny town at a café to eat before we headed home.