Pagosa - Day Two

Day two in Pagosa was a day spent tubing on the San Juan River.

I think the one and only other time I have ever been tubing was when I was a kid in Utah. I was born without the thrill gene so getting in a tube on a river is challenging for me.

There's a place that rents tubes for $20 per day and they have a van that picks you up at the end and drives you back to the starting point.  What a deal!

I thought we were in for a nice peaceful trip down the river, but within 30 seconds I was having second thoughts and would have made a hasty retreat if possible.

My sweet hubby caught up with me and held onto my tube for the duration of the trip.  To catch me he actually jumped out of the tube thinking he could just stand up.  To our surprise, there are sections of this river that are deeper than Irv is tall.

Mr. Beans seemed like an old pro and didn't get rattled, in fact I observed him helping other tubers along the way.

After the first trip was completed I sent the rest of them back to the starting point and chose to sit on the rocks at the side of the river and wait for them to come back.  It was very entertaining to watch people come over the rapids and get dumped out.  Here comes Irv!

See that empty yellow tube in the middle of the river?  That's Irv standing next to it.  This is one of the times he got flipped over.  Somehow he managed to hang onto his hat and sunglasses.  Mary's sunglasses are probably still floating down the river somewhere.

After the second trip we found a great brewery for lunch and adult beverages.  Irv and Mr. Beans weren't up for another trip.

It was so nice hanging out riverside with the family.

Mary wanted to make one more run down the river by herself.  Nothing like running across a highway in your swimsuit.

She loved the river!

Then it was time to go back to the campsite and warm up.  We struck up a conversation with our Texan neighbors who were very friendly folk.  They were from Laredo, TX and he was a border patrol agent.  Without getting political I asked them what the situation is really like at the border.  Are there really criminals, child molesters, murderers, people from the insane asylum, prisoners, etc. flooding the border?  (I didn't really use those words.)  Guess what they said...it's no big deal at the border.  They feel perfectly safe and the media makes a bigger deal about it than it really is.  Interesting, don't you think?

Here's some advice for anyone else heading down the river...don't forget to extend the sunscreen all the way down to the top of your feet!