Personal: Looyenga Family Goes White Water Rafting with ROW Adventures
So about a week ago my family and I had the huge opportunity to go white water rafting with the incredible people over at ROW Adventures. I didn’t do this for work, I did it for fun, so all these photos are way less focused on what ROW has to offer, and way more focused on my family, and the amazing people that made the experience. Because it was amazing people that made that experience. It started with the guides, who were kind, thoughtful, and so easy to talk to. It then extended to the 15 other people on the trip with us, who we found so easy to talk to, and absolutely loved getting to know over the course of the five days we spent together going down the Salmon and Snake rivers. So, as I have in other personal blogs, i’ll split this one up a bit in days so I can give you some background as to what is happening in these pictures, and hopefully share a little bit more of the trip with you. If you don’t’ care, that’s also ok, I just love taking pictures, I love being outside, seeing God’s creation and experiencing it with amazing people.
Day one had us driving a lot, and listening to a decent amount of talking (safety talks and all) but we finally got on the river around 3pm. The first round of photos was me just capturing what we had going on, from my boys in the raft with us, to some of the other amazing people rafting with us as well. We also had the privilege of having Kristen be our guide, who was incredibly kind, funny, and someone my boys specifically asked to be our guide again later in the trip. Towards the end of the day, once we setup camp (which can be seen in some of the photos) myself, my two boys, and two other boys climbed a mountain near the camp to get some great sunset photos. These are some of my favorite from the whole trip.
Our second day had us hitting the river after an amazing hot breakfast by the ROW guides. One of our first stops, however, was to see some Indigenous People’s pictographs, lunch, and then to our final camp site where we played games (such as tug of war) and played in the river (a common theme). The first picture (below) is what I woke up to that morning, and what a beautiful view it was!
The third day back on the river had us hitting some of the biggest rapids we would all trip, with two class four rapids, and several class three’s, it was an absolute blast. This day Isaiah would get launched out of the inflatable kayak we were using (although he was able to grab back on right away) and we would get to play a new game at camp in the evening where they flipped the raft upside down and let people jump and slide on it into the river (yes, I did it too). You’ll also note toward the bottom a picture of our tents, which ROW would always have setup for us when we arrived at camp. A truly great experience.
The fourth day was one of the last days I took a lot of photos. This day was an absolute blast. We had the chance to do some cliff jumping (one of my favorite things to do - as well as my boys), some water games, we hit some huge rapids, and I convinced my family to take a family photo - not always the easiest thing. At the end, we ended up in Blue Canyon, which was absolutely beautiful, and I took several photos of myself exploring around our campsite. The last photo is of the stars and Milky Way just before the nearly-full moon came over the horizon. In the end, we absolutely had a blast, and it will be something i’ll remember forever. Hopefully you love the photos as much as I enjoyed being there and taking them.
