Have you ever been rafting with all of your friends? I have, and I’d like to tell you about it. One day, I awoke to the screeching sound of my red Ninjago alarm clock, which I had purchased at the mall. I got out of my warm bed that I had slept on all night.  I felt great and even remembered having an amazing dream about flying in the sky with the birds. I walked over to my calendar and looked at the date. It happened to be the day that I would be going to Grants Pass, a town in southern Oregon where you can raft on the Rogue River with all of your friends and camp outside for the night. I quickly ran downstairs to go tell my parents what day it was. I went to my dad first because the rafting trip that we had planned was a special father and son trip.

 “Good morning Dad,” I said with a rush. “Today is the day that we get to go rafting!”

“Yeah Cole! I have already started packing,” he said to me. “I am almost done, and all I have left to do is get the tents and pack the camping chairs so we can sit by the fire and roast smores.”

 “Do you need any help with anything?” I asked joyfully. 

“You can put the chairs in the car,” he said politely. 

“Sure,” I said.

I started going to the camping chairs, but I quickly noticed that they were not where they usually were stored. They weren’t behind the boat in the garage, so I decided to look for them in the car to see if they had already been put in the trunk. Sure enough, they were sitting in the trunk that was very hot because the lid had been closed and it was over 85 degrees outside. I started back inside to tell my dad that the job had already been done. When I got inside I went to him and he remembered that he did it himself already. 

My dad had to go to work for a while, but when he came back, he said, “Meet me in the car Cole, it’s time to go!”

“Ok,” I said quickly.

I hopped into the hot and stuffy car that had been sitting in the sun for a couple hours, put on my seat belt, and waited patiently until my dad came. He finally came and it was time to go. 

“I’m so excited to go on this trip aren't you dad?” I asked enthusiastically waiting for an answer.

“Yeah Cole! I am” he responded. 

I knew that the road trip the get there was going to be long, but it was going to be worth it because of the fun experiences that we were going to have. 

“How long is the ride in the car, Dad?” I asked.

“The GPS says it will take about five hours.”

“I hope traffic isn't bad,” I said.

Once we arrived at the campground, we set up our tent and sleeping bags. I went to bed immediately because it was about ten o’clock, and we needed to wake up around 8:30 the next morning.

“Goodnight dad,” I said quietly as I quickly fell asleep.

The next morning I woke up slowly to the sound of the faint noise of a bell in the distance and quickly got to my feet. I got out of my tent and went to the covered picnic area where some amazingly nice people had cooked us a morning breakfast meal. After we ate, I went to get ready to raft for the day. I put on my swimsuit and was set for a day on the river. We rode in a van to the launch point at the river. As I got into the raft, I felt the cold, brisk water which felt like I had put my hand in a bag of ice water. We were with a large group of people, and all of the other rafts with us launched one by one down stream. When we went, we were the second raft in the front of the line of our group. After a few minutes, we reached the first rapids of the day. I started to paddle through the rapid and we went through it very smoothly. As we continued through more rapids, they started to get a little more intense. After three or four more rapids, we got to the last one of the morning.  We were following one of the rafts from our group through the rapids when all of the sudden they stopped moving! The river was moving fast and I was using all of my strength to paddle as hard as I could, but it looked like we were going to hit the other raft. 

“Hey dad, why did they stop moving?” I asked quickly.

“Looks like they got stuck on a rock. Paddle hard!” he yelled to everyone in our raft. 

It was too late. We hit the raft in front of us, but instead of bouncing off, our raft started to go under their raft. Water started flooding into our raft and it seemed like our boat was sinking quickly. I looked back at the other rafts coming behind us, and they were coming straight at us.

“Everyone out of the raft!” my dad yelled.

Everyone went to jump off of the raft just as we got hit with the other boat.  My dad and some of the other people got off just in time, but I got knocked down from the impact of the other boat.  Then the second raft started coming over top of ours because the river water was pushing it so hard. I was trapped. I could see some people floating fast down the river while some from each boat tried to help with what had just happened. I tried to jump into another boat but I realized my foot had gotten caught between the two rafts and I was stuck. Another dad that was in the boat said:

“Cole! Get out of there and swim down river to another boat!”

“My foot is stuck between the two rafts I can't get out.”

He quickly jumped from one of the rafts and yanked me out from between the two boats. He picked me up and threw me like a football flying across the sky. As I landed in the water I started crying immediately as I was scared felt the cold ice water hit my skin. I prayed to God quickly as I floated down the river hoping to find a boat and get to safety. As I floated, I eventually passed a group of our friends that had pulled onto the river bank.  They reached out and grabbed me out of the water. I sat on the shore until everyone eventually floated over. We ended up only losing one shoe out of our raft. I ended up being ok after all and loved the fun yet terrifying experience with my amazing dad.