Why Do I Keep Doing This?

John has been planning a 3 day two night river trip on the Colorado with Chris and Meg and their kiddos for months. We would start at the bridge in Moab and finish 20 miles down river at Potash. The river is smooth and wide and a perfect place to bring small children, our red raft and a newly finished kayak.

The weather had been hot and sunny for weeks and we were looking forward to getting on the river. Friday was the perfect lazy river day. Ezra was in the water more often than not. A lot of the time the river was shallow enough to walk down and we were all in the water at one time or another.  I even talked Travis into getting into the water with grandma.

We set up camp across the river from one of Chris and Meg's favorite climbing spots in the Moab area. It looked like some thunderstorms were rolling in, but nothing serious. John had offered to let Ezra, Maggie and Travis sleep in our Kirkham's tent/screen shelter with us and they were pretty excited. Just as we all were settling down to the pitter patter of intermittent rain and a flapping tent, a sudden micro burst  blew our tent down! Maggie was screaming, Ezra was trying to be brave and Travis went back to sleep while John and Chris were running around like crazy in various states of undress trying to get it back up and anchored. (It was actually pretty funny, looking back on it.)

The kayak was by the paddles before the storm

 

The next morning was beautiful, the calm river reflecting the red cliffs. John went to check things out and the kayak wasn't where we had left it. The wind had rolled it 2 or 3 times like a tumble weed!  But not harm done and  we were soon on the river hoping to get some miles in before another lazy afternoon.

The river was full of sand bars and we actually had to get out and push the raft and kayak a couple of times. At one point a tourist power boat came up behind us and went roaring down the deeper left channel of a island/sandbar while we were already committed to the right where we thought was Gold Bar, a boat ramp and recreation area. We were wishing we could had followed the power boat when we got stuck again.

As we got out to push and pull we looked up river to check on Chris and Meg in the kayak and saw a huge red dust cloud with black clouds behind it rushing towards us kicking up spray as it came. We knew the microburst was going to hit us, so I had Maggie, Travis and Ezra get down in the bottom of the raft with me while John was trying to keep the raft straight and rowed for the boat ramp and safety. I watched the cloud envelope Chris and Meg in the kayak and then it hit us. Strangely, I never felt afraid, I had been in winds like this before and knew we could handle them. I was more worried about the children. Of course Maggie was afraid and started crying, but Ezra and Travis were so brave, even though they were scared. Within minutes we were at the boat ramp and Meg hustled the kids into a vault toilet (it was very clean and had no smell,) because it was the only place that was protect from the wind and rain.

 

We ended up getting off the river at Gold Bar, we were told we still had 11 miles to go to Potash, when it  was really 6. But we were all okay with it. We went to Cortez, made our dutch oven lasagna in the oven, and had a good night's sleep. As we were talking about our favorite things on the river with Ezra and Travis we told them how much we had been blessed. That our prayers for safety had been answered. Had we gone left at the sand bar we would not have been able to get to the boat ramp and would have had to face the microburst on the river.

I would not have missed this trip for the world, mircrobursts and all. I got to spend time with John, Chris and Megan and Ezra, Travis and Maggie. And witness an answer to prayer.