This weekend, Mike and I went up to Sacramento to spend the night before our trip along the American River at Southfork. After our 3 hour drive from the city (the trip should take 1.5hrs), we arrived at our hotel and got ready for dinner. We were starved, as we didn’t think traffic would be as bad as it was. We had a great dinner at an italian restaurant–actually, Mike didn’t like his, and we gave too much credit to the waitress who we got to the point of deciding opposite of what she suggested. We met two ladies at the table next to us, and enjoyed the socializing. I was laughing so hard so much that night that I was crying for half the dinner.
That evening, we went to a club called Faces, which was supposed to be the hotspot of the city. For how big the downtown area seemed, it sure was speckled with people. It wasn’t really that great, and we left pretty early. We had to wake up early the next morning anyhow.
The next morning we woke up and had a quick breakfast and a mad dash to ForrestHill where we were to load our rafts. There we met a lot of people, and in particular two guys from LA. They were really nice, so we decided to rearrange the rafts so we could raft together. Our leader, John, was a 22-year old, Paul Bunyan type boy that I totally felt safe with–if I fell in, I felt he would just put one hand in the water to lift me back in. :)
The water was freezing, the day was beautiful, and the sun was pretty hot. It made for quite a nice experience for rafting. The water genuinely took my breath away and left me gasping for air whenever it came crashing over the front end. The river was classified as a Class IV out of V classes, so some of the rapids were pretty harsh. Luckily, you had five guys that were smart and completely in sync, and John, our great leader. We never got stuck, we never fell out, we never got all turned around and performed the best of all groups. I think everyone was impressed–I sure was.
Lunch was an awesome deli spread with breads, fresh deli meats, vegetables, and water. It was well deserved, and we all scarfed up our meal. I was SO incredibly hungry. I really hate that feeling.
After lunch, we continued on down the river to where we came upon rougher parts, one including a 6 foot drop! It was really great! We finally ended our tour around 5/5:30ish and headed back to the parking lot by buses. Then, the LA guys, Ray & Ben, joined Mike and me for dinner. They had come to SF for the weekend just to hang out, so it was cool to meet some people our age.
Anyhow, the weekend was a blast, and I should have some pics sometime soon!