Good morning from the yurt!  Did we mention that the circle top of the yurt is clear – it is beautiful for star gazing, but it makes for an early morning wake  up call from the sun about 5:15 🤣

Thankfully, we had a nice rain shower overnight and early morning, so it lulled us right back to sleep.  Mike and I headed to the office for coffee (see it really is glamping), and then came back to wake the boys.  We are headed out for whitewater rafting down the Kennipac River today, so they were pretty easy to get moving this morning.

Geared up and ready to get on the bus and head to the rapids! Mike is not a fan of any bus ride and this one was ROUGH!!  Pretty sure we were airborne from our seats a couple of times. They use old logging roads to make the trip to the river 45 minutes instead of 2 ½ hours, but oh my word!  That was the roughest riding road we have every been on – imagine the biggest pothole of your life, duplicated over and over, and then driving on it at 40 mps on a bus.  That was how we started the fourth with teeth chattering traveling!

We were grouped with a family of 4 from Connecticut, and a couple from Charlotte – all very nice – and our guide Derek

After carrying the raft to the put in site, we used the rails to get the raft into the water, and off we went.

The Kennipac River is beautiful, and the water was COLD! Not quite as cold as Glacier but honestly, when its freezing, what do 10° matter, right?  The rapids were amazing!  The boys did great listening to Derek’s commands and having the best time.  Their ears perked up a bit when he said they were always looking for new guides and offered a 7-day Guide Certification Course. Maybe Mike and I will do that when we retire🤣

We had a few spots when we could jump in to “swim” the rapids, and honestly, when will we get this chance again? So 💦 in we went! After about 2-3 minutes, you started to numb up so the cold didn’t bother you so much.  But oh my word, trying to get back in the raft!  It was like landing a marlin, they just snatched up back n and it was as ungraceful as possible!

Rafting, swimming, rafting swimming… it was wonderful.  The weather was great and the scenario was beautiful and our raft mates couldn’t have been better.

We put out of the water 14 miles down river and after deflating our rafts, we loaded back on the bus to head to the shelter.  The crew cooked lunch while we dried off, and after eating and relaxing a bit, we loaded back up and headed home.  With bellies full and exhausting from the day we caught a few naps despite the bumpy roads – but the boys especially loved Parker, one of the owners’ dogs.  Clearly Parker was comfortable with people and buses

Conquered the Kennipac River!

After a really nice hot shower, we rested a bit and then headed into the town of Greenville for dinner.  Derek,our raft guide, suggested  the “Stress Free Moose” for dinner so off we went.  It was a great location and the food was delicious. Greenville looks exactly like you would imagine ideal lake-side town in Maine would look like, and off course we found some post-dinner Ice cream for dessert.

We decided to go ahead and get our fire going so we could celebrate the 4th of July with campfire S’mores, and they were fantastic!  

Michael found an orange that we have had since Niagara Falls and decided he would see what happened when you burn an orange (answer: nothing, it turns into a hard ball then ash).  

We also used the “fire color” stuff we bought in camp store – it changes the color of the fire. The boys loved it – I thought it looked like we were burning the Wicked Witch of the West.  Either way, we relaxed and watched the fire burn… what is it about a campfire that just makes you stare at it?

We finished the night finished our last 5 hands of Garbage (Mike crushed everyone!)

And then headed to the bathhouse to brush teeth before bed.  While we were at the bathhouse we got a sweet picture from Charlotte Stewart of the puppies for 4th of July ♥️🇺🇸