December '09 Newsletter

Happy Holidays everyone!

The air is getting crisp and the cottonwood trees in the streambed are golden. We had to cover a few cacti this past week and finally got some much needed rain, 2¼ inches in 24 hours! It was quite a storm, complete with 75 mph winds and spectacular lightning. After an extra long, hot, dry summer, it is a refreshing change to bundle up in fleece and run the fireplaces. Our Christmas tree went up last week and we are hoping to put up some outdoor lights today. Susan bundled up like a little kid for her bell-ringing stint with our local Salvation Army.

The highlight of our traveling this year was a 22-day China adventure with OAT - Overseas Adventure Travel. It sampled Beijing, Xian, Chengdu, Tibet, the Yangtze River, and Hong Kong. Bob now wants to go overland by train from Hong Kong to Lhasa, Tibet and then take a bus over the high mountain passes near Everest to Kathmandu in Nepal. In March, we sea kayaked in Belize for a bit over a week. We also enjoyed a few weeks in Minnesota with family, a couple of weeks in Utah river rafting, and a week on Lake Powell house boating.

Susan's house plants have all returned home from their vacation spots with various friends around town. She loves having them back and thinks they earn their keep by cleaning our air. Bob has resumed activities with the water board and we've been catching up on social events. Five clowns reunited for the Veterans Day Parade. Mirroring the economy, the event was downsized from last year but was fun never the less. Unfortunately the fireworks had to be postponed until New Years Eve due to the drought-caused fire hazard.

Susan buys tickets for all kinds of local fund raisers and rarely wins but this year she was surprised to win two turkeys in the Lions Club Thanksgiving raffle. We had already donated two twenty pounders to High Desert Helpers for our annual free community turkey feed, so we roasted one of the prizes and found a deserving home for the other. Our Club fed over 200 locals this year and a good time was had by all. Susan will soon be playing elf for this year's Breakfast with Santa event. At least two other local clowns and a couple more from Sun City's Red Hot Clown Alley will join her.

Scott, Tennille, and our grand dog Hudson plan to visit for a few days after Christmas. They have dubbed our household "The Recovery Room". Between Bob's January and October knee replacements and Susan's November heart ablation, we've been quite the convalescents. Rather than whining, we're looking at it as the joy of growing older and feeling blessed that we live in the age of fabulous technology. We had to postpone our planned month-long autumn Turkey adventure but will reschedule it sometime soon. The third time has to be the charm. Depending on Bob's knee recovery, we are hoping to schedule travel in either Egypt or Australia this spring.

Life is good! We wish you and your loved ones joy and many blessings this season!

2010 River Permits and Trips:

It's time to begin thinking about river permit applications again. Many river trips require a non-commercial permit to obtain a launch date. The permits usually allows the permit holder to organize a group of 16 or more friends. Since there are always many more applicants than available permits for any launch date, permit lotteries are held. These require interested individuals to submit an application during December or some as late as the first couple of weeks of January. You can find the lottery application specifics on our website.

We're excited by the early snow in Arizona's high country. This is supposedly an el Nino year, so climatologists predict a wet and cold winter in the Southwest. We think we'll be home during the prime spring season, so we're contemplating a Salt River raft trip, especially if it has great flows and a lengthy season. We're also planning to spend much of June in Idaho rafting the rivers up there. We plan a pre-season trip on the Main Salmon but if it works out we might also check out the Owyhee and Bruneau, rivers we've never rafted. If you obtain a Middle Fork permit in either early or late June and need help organizing your trip or just a couple of participants with a raft, you can count on us.

The Grand Canyon lottery is coming up in February. Those of you who can never get on one of those trips have a significant advantage. If you haven't been through the Canyon on a raft recently or perhaps ever, you have preference in the lottery. While frequent visitors, like ourselves, only have one chance in the lottery, you would get up to five lottery chances for the same $25 entry fee that we pay. Check out the NPS website for the February lottery and get your name registered. Even if you are not immediately successful, you will become eligible for the many cancellation lotteries that will occur during 2010.

If any of you have questions or suggestions about 2010 river trips, give us a call, we enjoy talking about river rafting, one of our favorite activities.

2010 MG Trip Plans:

The uncertanties associated with Bob's lengthy recovery put any spring group trip plans we might have had in jeopardy. Interest in a spring of 2010 group Eqypt trip was extremely low, so no one was harmed by its cancellation. We might still do the trip by ourselves if Bob's knee is fully recovered by the end of this year. At the moment we have only two group trips planned for next year.

Start	Finish	Trip Name	Group Size	Comments
6/13/10	6/20/10	Main Salmon Raft Trip	15	The Main Salmon does not require a permit until June 19. A group simply turns up and goes boating. Because of the lower elevation, the weather is usually warmer than on the Middle Fork and while challenging, the whitewater is not normally life-threatening in mid-June. The cherry orchards downstream are usually yielding fruit and most beach camps are available due to reduced pre-season use.
8/14/10	8/21/10	Queen Charlotte Sea Kayaking	12	Our outfitter will take us to a remote location and leave us for 7 days of kayaking in the Gwaii Haanas National Park Reserve and Haida Heritage Site. There will be frequent visits to cultural sites and interesting tide-influenced kayaking between campsites. Kayaks, both singles and doubles, will be supplied by the outfitter. This will be a backpacking style self-supported kayaking trip.

Notes:

• Contact us for a full trip description, dates, and expected cost.
• A 25% deposit and completed questionaire/assumption of risk form is required.
• Our reservation and cancellation policy, is available upon request.
• Pre-trip information is mailed to all participants approximately a month prior to the trip.