Rafting the Tieton River

Last Christmas my parents gave the family gift certificates for river rafting. Ah, the excitement! Which river would we choose to tackle? Would we all be brave enough to conquer a class 3/4? Would those of us who've gone river rafting before and been bounced out of the boat have to be talked into anything more than a class 2? (Yes, that was an autobiographical statement).

Well it was a moot point, because I got pregnant...and a few months later Paul & Mandy moved to Hawaii...so in the end it was the five intrepid rafters pictured below who braved the class 3/4 Tieton River near Mount Rainier last Sunday. There were extra spots in the boat so they put a couple of co-workers from Mini Cooper in the raft with the family. The guy was a sport about all my picture taking. The girl was camera shy.

The river runs mostly along the road, so I was able to drive ahead and get to a few good picture spots (the one below offered the option of either climbing a 7' fence gate or climbing through the barbed wire fence itself...I opted for climbing the gate. In my flip flops. At 8 1/2 months pregnant. I'm pretty sure if Bret had been with me, instead of on the river, I would've gotten in big trouble.) But isn't this picture worth it?