One week before spring break of 2014, my best friend Claire called my house asking if I wanted to go camping with she and her family for a weekend.  She explained that we would be river rafting during the day and camping at night. I had never been camping before but had always been curious. Before Claire could even finish explaining what we’d be doing, I agreed eagerly. For camping while rafting, you packed lightly: two t-shirts, a bathing suit, two pairs of shorts, underwear, and pajamas.  That’s it. We put our clothes into small nylon bags that we later put into a huge rubber, waterproof sack. The whole process of packing so lightly and preparing all seemed so foreign to me. I stood in the kitchen at Claire’s house silently as her family whizzed around me, shoving things into small backpacks and wrapping food for the road. Finally, we were ready to begin the drive down to the river and campsite. The drive was one of the best parts.  We made at least four stops at gas stations where we loaded up on candies, chips and tons of 99 cent cans of Arizona Iced Tea. In between these stops we sang our hearts out to Sara Bareilles and The All American Rejects and gradually, noticed the temperature jump from 55 degrees to 75 degrees. After two hours in the car, I saw that the thermometer had climbed to 80 and suddenly knew we’d arrived at the Sacramento River. We parked and began pulling out our kayaks and blowing up boats. Finally, we loaded the biggest boat with our our food, clothes and tents for the trip and began our journey across the river.

The first day of rafting, Claire and I got stuck with the worst kayak, the faulty one that for some reason, had no turning capability.  Of course, the boys in the other, perfectly functioning kayak, took every chance they got to flip us over. Thanks to our faulty kayak, we spent the day in the blazing hot sun, kayaking at least 75 feet behind everyone else. It had been a very long day. When we finally made it to the campsite, we parked on a little beach, set up a camp, parents cooked, and kids explored. The camp site was flat and rocky and after only a few minutes gray clouds blanketed down over us. Claire and I played cards until dinner, and when the sun set and the darkness came along with the mosquitos. I somewhat knew what camping was like, but I never would have guessed “roughing it” was going to be that rough.  As we circled around the firepit, I taught everyone how to play Mafia, a game that involves silent killers and investigation within a ten minute round and ten people sitting in a circle. When all were exhausted, we all fell asleep with bug spray as our blanket, too tired to care about bug bites or the fact that there were no actual bathrooms.

My friend, Claire, told me the second day is the most fun, which wasn’t exactly how I would put it.  Exciting or lively, yes, but “fun” was a light way of putting what our day had in store for us. We woke up early to steal the kayak from the boys, another girl we befriended, Sasha, joined us on our stolen boat, she was only six but made a good lookout in the front. The day was going smoothly and nothing exciting seemed to happen because the new kayak made it easier to turn. At one point, we were going down the river talking and playing “I spy”, too distracted to realize how big of a problem it was our boat was headed straight toward a V shaped log. Once we had realized, it was too late. I felt myself take a deep breath, prepared to hit the water as our boat flipped over. The last thing I saw was Claire wrap her arms around Sasha as we went under.

I felt my head hit something hard and I couldn’t tell if it was the boat or the log as I struggled to come up above the water. I struggled at first but if I were to hold still I could float up. I looked up, or at least what I thought I was looking up, and swam. Whether I was swimming the right way or not, I eventually broke the surface just as I was running out of breath. When I came up, I was next to Claire and Sasha in between the two logs that connected at a point. When taught about boat safety, we were told to stick our legs up so we could see our toes, but in this situation, we couldn’t. If we were to put our legs out the current would drag us under the log. It felt as if a person was pushing against me pushing down my head making me sink. We floated there being pulled by the current in a confused haze, wondering what to do. The current was too fast, so we clung to the log in front of us. I wasn’t too freaked out, and even the eight year old Sasha wasn’t scared. Although Claire’s arms were still around Sasha and kept telling her it was going to be okay, it seemed as though Claire needed more comfort than Sasha did. Water rushed around us, enveloping us in a pool leaving us to cling to a log as tight as we could, so we would not be washed away. We breathed calmly, but calm breaths didn’t help the fact that we would eventually slip under this log. We would not be able to hold on against the current forever. Fortunately, Claire’s father had seen us go under, and came rushing toward us with the biggest and strongest boat so he wouldn’t go under either. He helped us out one at a time. The boys caught our boat that was floating down the river. We all got onto the huge raft with the supplies and tied our little boat to the end. None of us really wanted to go back into our boat, and no one really would have let us, so we became co captains of the big boat.

For the rest of the trip, it was the highlighted story, how we flipped over and “almost died” as Claire put it, we retold the story to her mother a thousand times, assuring her that everyone was fine.  Even listening to Claire retell our adventure, it still seemed unreal.  How could a brief five minutes filled with danger fill my body with such a rush? I now understand what people mean when they talk about an adrenaline rush because of this unforgettable spring break. Being terrified and excited all at once has a way of making you feel truly alive and I’ve been missing that feeling ever since that moment.