Drama on the Deschutes

We picked a very good day to decide to float the Deschutes - the weather was beautiful and warm. It was a new experience for our family - floating any real river actually (besides "Lazy Rivers" at water parks). But, we rented some tubes and a raft and a "Tahiti" - that came with the necessary life vests - and we found our way to the drop off point and set in.

I love this pic of the kids waiting for John and Michael to return from dropping off his rig where we'd end our run at.

The group of us, sans John who was taking the picture. (Stephie's been here in Sunriver with us, but was taking care of a sick Bogey the beagle)




You gotta love the awkward positions we were in - I didn't realize it was just a net bottom on the tubes, and the Deschutes water comes straight from the snow melt.



Oh what a view - such beauty along this float.


And, there's something you don't see everyday, a deer going for a swim to cross the river.

Notice a few things in this picture. One, the joint tube has been flipped over. Yes, somehow those boys managed to make that accident happen. They were so hyper (mostly my son) - he was literally driving me bonkers to the extent that I moved to the raft to join Mikayla positioned furthest away from the boys. This set into the motion the idea to "set them free" from our roped off "blob" of floaties - and while it was funny to begin with, they were not happy at all after a while. In fact, as the boys floated further and further away from us, they ended up getting scared. It was something we had to really talk through with them - for them to recognize all they needed to do was to express they were scared and we would have "rescued them" in a heartbeat - but that their behavior had warranted our decision to let them play on their own. It was a hard lesson particularly between Brayden and John as, initially, Brayden completely blamed John and it made John very sad to recognize Brayden believed it was all his fault (when in reality the "releasing the boys" decision was not made by John).

Fortunately, we were mostly able to rebound from that and enjoy the last portion of the two and a half hour float. Michael, Traig, and Ellie ended up going again as we had rented the float supplies for the day. (We had to get ready for the wedding, so it wasn't an option for us).

Here's two parting shots of our wait once again for the guys to return with both vehicles - Traig getting some shelter from the tubes and Mikayla being sweetly "reflective" along the shoreline.


Despite the drama, it's definitely been declared that this something we will for sure do again the next time we return to Sunriver in the summer.