Welcome to Tom and Jana's 2005
Grand Canyon Rafting Journal!
With Bonus Stops at Zion National Park
and Walnut Canyon National Monument
Hi, this is Jana speaking. Usually Tom writes the intro page
and then turns it over to me for the main journal text, but since
this is a trip I FORCED him to go on, I'll start here.
In 1983, when I was 12 years old, my dad, Ed Neighbors, took
my brother Mark and I on a rafting trip down the Colorado River
through the Grand Canyon. He had taken our brother Brian a couple
of years previous, and I was crazy jealous, so now it was my turn.
Although it was one of the best trips of my life, there was a huge
flood on the river that year, and my dad claimed the whitewater
wasn't as good as the first time he went. He promised to take me
again in a few years. Always good to his word, before I graduated
from high school, Dad and I took the trip again, and he was right.
The water was big!
A few years ago my brother Brian said when his sons got old
enough, he wanted to take them on the same trip. I said, well, I'm
going too! So the last two summers we took a one-day rafting trip
on the Ocoee River in Tennessee and a two-day trip down the
Chattooga River on the South Carolina-Georgia border to see if the
boys even liked rafting. They passed the test, so we made our 2005
Colorado River plans.
Tom had no idea what the trip would entail, and I was at a
loss to explain it because it's mostly inexplicable - you've just
got to do it for yourself. So he was understandably skeptical as to
whether it was worth the price. But I made him go, and in the end,
I think he came to love this trip (almost) as much as me!
Day 1 Knoxville
to the West
Day 2 Zion National
Park
Day 3 Grand Canyon
North Rim
Day 4 Day 1 on the
River
Day 5 Day 2 on the
River
Day 6 Day 3 on the
River
Day 7 Day 4 on the
River
Day 8 Day 5 on the
River
Day 9 Grand Canyon to
Flagstaff
Day 10 Walnut Canyon to Las
Vegas then Home
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