Russian River Rafting

A few weekends ago we finally had the chance to go rafting on the Russian River. It's something I've wanted to do for a while and we had a free Saturday that we could take off and go.  While planning I had thoughts about inviting a bunch of friends and doing the adventure together but with Young working so much these days, we decided we just needed a family day away together.  And it was a perfect family/team building adventure!  Nothing like testing your work-ability by trying to steer a huge inflatable boat together.

We decided on the half day trip, 4miles, about 3 hours and it was the perfect amount of time/work for two 5 year olds.  We suited up, headed to the river, had our safety class and we were off!  It's a lot harder than you think...but luckily the river was helping carry us down.

All along the river are sand barges that you can get out and swim, look for fish, snack, just relax in the water...oh yeah, it was HOT!  like 95 hot!  So we were stopping several times to get out and cool off.

Lunch on the Russian River!  We found a nice shady spot to stop and refuel.

Timo and Cameron had been asking to steer the boat so we found a somewhat calm part of the river and let them have a go.  After running us into the bushes on the river bank, we took back over...

 We saw lots of wild life along the river as well...it's so good for our city kid to get out in nature.  The leaves were just starting to change too and we saw some really pretty reds, oranges and yellows.

Once we reached the end, the rafting company had vans that took us back to our car.  We happen to finish right as the van left so we had about 30mins to wait which gave the kids time to float down the river in the current.  It was just enough of a rapid to zip down.

After our adventure we were all starving!  We drove a short drive into Healdsburg for some pasta!  Timo drew a rendition of our boat while waiting on supper.  And of course we needed a little gelato before our drive home.  A great finish to a great adventurous day.