Kayaking
Something that Kyle got me into doing was kayaking. I love doing this! Kyle already had his own kayak so we went and bought me one. It looked just like Kyles but it was blue. We went a couple of times saw so amazing things. One time in particular we were on the south fork of the Teton river, we saw a white tailed deer, an owl coming out of its hole and when we looked inside its hole we saw 3 baby owls, 17 pelicans, 23 huge white swans, a couple of families of ducks and geese, a little beaver, a huge beaver that we couldn't figure out what it was until it came up out of the water 2 feet away from my kayak with a huge splash. It scared me so bad I almost jumped out of my kayak. We have seen so many amazing things on the river. I love it so much!On May 21 Kyle took his brother Shane to the Teton Dam to kayak down. I drove them up and dropped them off. When I got home I get a call from Kyle. "Shan can you come get us now?" I was so confused because it had only been 30 minutes since i dropped them off. I asked if everything was alright. The reception was bad. kyle said "Ya everything is fine could you just hurry. Bring two pairs of shoes. We are in the same spot where you dropped us off." We lost connection there. As I thought about it longer; bring two pairs of shoes, hurry, pick them up in the same spot, I was freaking out just a little. When I got back up to the dam I went to the same spot. They were not there. I got out and looked around shouting their names I got no response. I started freaking out a little more. I drove around and finally I look across the river to see two boys sitting on a rock drenched from head to toe, no shoes, no paddles, no kayaks. I calmed down just a bit when I saw them both breathing.
It took about another 30-45 minutes for them to figure out how to get back across the huge river. They had to swim up stream to get to a calmer part of the river. Kyle went across first and turned to Shane and told him not to swim across. The river was freezing. He told Shane to hike up to the road and we would pick him up.
Kyle and I went downstream to look for the kayaks. We found mine but it was in the middle of the river stuck on the beginning of a little island. We couldn't get to it with out another kayak or boat or something. We found my paddle on the other side of the river on the bank. We looked for kyles stuff but couldn't see it.
We went back to the truck to go pick up Shane and look for the other kayak. We got to the top of the road that overlooks the whole river and saw kyles kayak going in circles in a little Bay area. We rushed down to get it but we were 45 seconds late. Right when we got there the current got it and sent it down the river. We chased it for as long as we could but got stuck at a farmers places. He had a gate on the road which lead to his fields of grains, potatoes, lamas, birds and other things. We went to see if we could find them to ask if he could let us by but no one was home. We back tracked and went to find Shane. Kyle dropped me off at the bridge at Monkey Rock so I could sit and watch for the kayaks to come while he went to find Shane. Of course my phone dies right then so I just sit wondering if Kyle found Shane. About an hour later Kyle comes to pick me up. He got a phone call from Shane telling us that he is in St. Anthony and a gas station. When we picked him up we find out that as he was walking the road is a little further then we thought. He was walking through thorny Fields (still no shoes) some workers saw him and went and got him on a 4-wheeler. They took him into town. He found a cell phone from someone else and we finally got him.
The story continues.... we drove back out to the dam to see if my kayak was still there. It was we figured out a way we could get it. We thought about swimming across but the current was to strong there and the water was way to cold to swim in. We thought about renting jet skis then we could have a little more fun after we found them, but that idea was out. Then we thought of a winning idea. We would barrow my grandparents raft and float down. By this time it was to late to go that night. Kyle had school the next day at 9 and we had to be in Preston to work at 3 so we did not get to the raft till Monday.
Kyles parents came up on Monday to help us. We got the raft our and invited my cousins Lesh, Emma and KT came up to go rafting with us. When we blew the raft up it was a little smaller then I had remembered. Only Kyle, Steve and Shane fit in the raft. So we sent them off. KT had her own kayak so we pushed her in and watched her go. On the first rapid (the same one Kyle and Shane flipped on) she flipped. I ran down and caught her kayak luckily. She got back in and went the rest of the way.
Lesh, Emma and I went to monkey rock to wait for them. About 2 hours later we see a orange kayak coming down the river! What a great day we found a kayak! So this very long, lessons learned experience turned out to be a crazy experience that we will never forget. Also we only ended up loosing 2 pairs of shoes, my blue smith sunglasses, 2 nalgene bottles, 2 caribeners one yellow paddle, and one blue kayak. It could have been worse. We were happy to at least find one paddle and one kayak. Now we just have to save our pennies for another kayak.
We sure did learn so much from this experience. We are very thankful that no one got hurt besides some scraped up feet and some scrapes.
Afterwards we celebrated finding our kayak by jumping off the bridge. This is Shane and Kyle.
Emma, KT, Lesh and me at the bridge watching Kyle, Stevo and Shane jump.
