whitewater fun.

So this past weekend was FIBArk in Salida...a.k.a. the craziest weekend this little town has ever seen.  For those of you not in the know, FIBArk stands for First In Boating the Arkansas, and is essentially a big four-day river and music festival.  Lots of rafting and kayaking events, as well as live music in the park downtown every day.  The town normally doubles in size for this event.  This year, since the water is abysmally low, there was less of a turnout, but still a good time.  I was working during the days, but at night I did get to go boogie to some great tunes: Friday night was The Motet playing the Talking Heads, and Saturday a group called Fishbone graced us with their presence.  Both bands were high energy, as was the dancing crowd, so it made for some fun.

In other river news, I've now gone on five commercial trips and am getting more comfortable with it all the time.  My best boating story so far:  On this past Thursday I took a wedding party on a half day trip (I had five of them in my boat, including the bride and groom, and my buddy Rob had the other five).  As soon as they got in my boat, one of the guys named Tony asked if we could flip for fun.  Definitely set a good tone for the day.  I decided to try to flip them in a rapid called Siedel's Suckhole (sounds ominous but at this water level it's pretty straightforward...however, at high water it's a whole different ball game - and these are River Runners boats in this video!)  Long story short, we didn't quite make it because we were trying to avoid another boat and would've flipped right onto a rock if we'd carried out the plan.  Abort plan, abort.  We were a little disappointed after that, thinking we were in for a good ride and all, but then came Twin Falls, the next rapid.  Again, at this water level it's pretty straightforward.  Or so the groom thought:

We started out fine...

...then we got a little sideways...

...and then he went for a swim.  And I was laughing.  AND it was caught on camera.  Winning.

So yes, I swam the groom.  And yes, I got him back in the boat just fine, laughing about his adventure.  The best part was how he bobbed up and down with his legs above water for a couple seconds, and then how all his buddies were stoked about the fact that he swam (in Tony's words, "He's the one we wanted to get in the water today because he's too uptight about everything.  That was AWESOME.")

Indeed it was, Tony.  Indeed it was.