"The Sun is Shining"

Well Hello Everyone :)

I write you now from one of our boss's house. He's been working at Ace for over 20 years, and lives in a cool little house on a beautiful ridge on property. With intense old stories, a hot tub, hot shower and internet access, he's become one of my closest buddies :) He's actually one of our trainers as well, the type who might yell something like "Paddle harder you maggots!!" at any given time...

Things here seem to get more intense as time goes on. The more we learn about the river, the scarier it seems to get. They say "Ignorance is bliss" a lot here, and I personally believe that to be the case. I never feared these rivers over the last four years, as I do now. I think the veteran guide trainers, actually I know, make a point to scare the living shit outta us as frequently as they possibly can. For example, we hear horror stories such as, "I saw a whole boat with seven people on it get sucked under that rock..." "He broke his back on that hit..." "Oh she was a good guide, but quit the day one of her customers almost died..." And I'm thinking, are you freaking kidding me?! These people are seriously confident, somewhat cocky, and definitely badass. I mean you have to be to have the mental strength to at the very least make it through training...

Life off the river is no less intense. I've been recruited into construction here, where we're building a shower house and a gear room. And earlier when I said I was doing manual labor, well I must have been confused, because I am now getting worked like I'd never believed. I have a time card that I push into a machine to clock me in and out everyday, I'm constantly covered in saw dust, mud, paint and high on the fumes of some sort of sealant. I lug and stack lumber, I fill pot holes all over our 1,400 acre property with gravel, and I ache like crazy. I actually took the day off today because I thought I might keel over and die after four days straight this week. I need to get my act together today though, because my tent is taking on water and I've been sleeping in a puddle. So I need to re-tarp my A-frame structure today while it's sunny, which is super rare by the way... to be sunny that is. That "April Showers" saying is no joke here. But I can now comfortably hang out in the rain while it's 35F outside with no problem. When you live outside, you either get used to it, or you get out...

We definitely find ways to amuse ourselves as a pack though. Building and playing with fire is now standard, but someone introduced the game of "Hot Coals" to us. It's like Hot Potato, but with 500 degree coals yanked out of the fire pit instead. I think I'm pretty good at it... We have a Wing Night at another rafting company's bar, and we throw some of our guys up to sing with the local musicians. I even almost got into a bar fight last week! Great fun. It was awful actually... I was targeted as a newbie trainee, and surrounded by six local river veterans and verbally harassed for a while before my people noticed what was going on on the other side of the bar. The situation was ultimately defused, but it certainly shook me up. Like I said before, anything to scare us...

Well everyone, I miss you all very much and can't wait for the season to start so I can start seeing your smiling faces again :) Don't worry about me, I think I'll survive ;)

Lots of Love,

LB