Yakima River Float

Last weekend involved a group of about 40 people, myself included, tying inflatable rafts together and floating down the yakima river for about 14 miles. Understandably, this flotilla was hard to control, and spent a fair bit of time bouncing off the edges of the river.

One instance of this involved my raft colliding with a jagged rock, possibly a series of them. The raft tipped over and unceremoniously dumped me into the river, before its now utterly lacerated self moved on with the rest of the group, leaving me stranded. I got to my feet to see the uncontrollable mass of rubber, beer, and partiers several hundred feet downstream, a distance which could not be regained by swimming. Luckily, the road between Ellensburg and our campground paralleled the river, so I scrambled out and ran along the road, to the serenade of half the floaters singing "flight of the valkyrie" while the other half sang the theme song from Rocky. This lasted for what seemed like at least a quarter of a marathon, until I nobly rejoined the party.

By the time all that was through, everyone knew my name: The Karate Kid. I'm not sure how they came up with that.