In my last post, I wrote about night tubing down the Colorado River in Yuma—glow sticks, waterproof Bluetooth speakers, questionable playlists, an occasional adult beverage or two, and the all-important designated floater. There was even the legendary Once in a Blue Moon Float, because apparently floating down a river after dark wasn’t already enough of an adventure.

But before we started waiting for the sun to go down to make questionable recreational decisions, there were the day floats.

And honestly, those were where it all started.

The Summer of 2010

My tubing obsession began during the summer of 2010.

And “obsession” might actually be the appropriate word.

What started as discovering a cheap way to escape the Yuma summer heat quickly became something I wanted to do again.

And again.

And again.

At one point, tubing became an almost weekly occurrence.

It wasn’t really planned that way. Nobody sat down at the beginning of summer and announced that we were going to dedicate a significant portion of our free time to floating down the Colorado River in giant inflatable tubes.

It just sort of happened.

And sometimes the entire trip started with nothing more complicated than a Facebook post:

“Anybody floating on Saturday?”

Or:

“Does anybody want to float this weekend?”

That was basically the planning committee.

No group chat with a spreadsheet.

No shared itinerary.

No reservation system.

No twelve-message debate about what time everyone should meet.

Just throw a post onto Facebook and see who answered.

Sometimes a few regulars responded.

Sometimes someone new decided to come along.

Sometimes a friend brought another friend.

And before long, a random weekend post had turned into another little convoy of people heading toward the Colorado River with tubes, coolers, sunblock, and very loose expectations for the rest of the day.

One float became another.

Someone new wanted to come along.

Someone who had gone before wanted to go again.

The temperature climbed past 110 degrees.

And suddenly the question wasn’t:

“What are we doing this weekend?”

It was:

“Are we floating this weekend?”

There was something wonderfully uncomplicated about that routine.

Work during the week.

Survive another stretch of the Yuma summer.

Throw a message onto Facebook.

See who showed up.

Then grab the tubes and head for the river.

A Cheap Escape During a Simpler Time

There’s a certain nostalgia that comes with floating the Colorado River in Yuma now.

When I started doing this back in 2010, I wasn’t thinking about creating memories or having some meaningful life experience. I certainly wasn’t thinking that more than fifteen years later I’d be sitting somewhere writing a travel blog about it.

I was mostly thinking:

It’s hot, I’m broke, and I need something to do.

Sometimes necessity really is the mother of adventure.

Back then, life seemed a little simpler.

Money was tighter.

Entertainment budgets were considerably smaller.

And getting away didn’t necessarily mean getting on an airplane, booking a hotel, or planning some elaborate vacation months in advance.

Sometimes you just needed a cheap retreat from the Yuma heat.

And when summer temperatures regularly climbed into the triple digits, the Colorado River was sitting right there.

For the price of a tube, some gas, sunblock, drinking water, snacks, ice, and whatever else you threw into the cooler, you could disappear for an afternoon.

That was the vacation.

No airport.

No hotel.

No resort fees.

No itinerary.

No reservations.

No wondering whether you had enough PTO.

Just a few hours floating down a river.

Looking back now, there’s something I really miss about how little it took to feel like you’d gotten away from everything.

Somehow, the Non-Local Became the Tour Guide

One of the funnier things about those years is that I wasn’t even a Yuma local.

I moved there.

I was the transplant.

Yet somehow, I regularly found myself introducing—or sometimes reintroducing—people who had lived in Yuma their entire lives to tubing down the Colorado River.

You would think the guy who wasn’t from Yuma would be the one getting shown around.

Instead, I became the person saying:

“Wait…you’ve lived here your whole life and you’ve never done this?”

Some people had never floated the river at all.

Others had done it years earlier but hadn’t thought about doing it again until I started putting trips together.

So somehow the outsider became the unofficial tubing ambassador.

There was something fun about watching someone experience a place they’d known their entire life in a slightly different way.

The Colorado River wasn’t some hidden attraction.

It had always been there.

They had driven past it.

Crossed it.

Visited parks along it.

Maybe spent time near it.

But sometimes it takes someone new to an area to look around and ask the incredibly sophisticated question:

“So…can we float down that?”

Apparently, yes.

And once I discovered that answer, I started bringing people with me.

The Revolving Cast of Characters

There was never really one permanent tubing crew.

Instead, there was a revolving cast of characters.

Friends.

Coworkers.

People who had grown up in Yuma.

People who had recently moved there.

People who hadn’t been on the river in years.

Friends of friends.

Some people became regulars.

Some showed up occasionally.

Some came once, discovered exactly what spending several hours exposed to the Yuma sun actually meant, and apparently decided once was sufficient.

And those simple Facebook posts helped keep that revolving cast alive.

One weekend it might be mostly familiar faces.

The next weekend, half the group could be different.

Someone would comment.

Someone would tag someone else.

Suddenly, somebody who had never floated with us before wanted to come along.

Of course, newcomers frequently had one problem:

They didn’t own any tubing gear.

That wasn’t really a problem for long.

By that point, the regulars had accumulated enough extra tubes, ropes, pumps, coolers, and miscellaneous river equipment that we could usually get another person onto the water without much trouble.

So the instructions were pretty simple:

“Just bring your snacks, drinks, and meet us here.”

We’d take care of the rest.

Someone had an extra tube.

Someone had another rope.

There was usually room in a cooler.

We had pumps.

We had gear.

We had probably accumulated far more tubing equipment than any normal person should reasonably own.

For someone’s first trip, though, it meant they didn’t have to spend a bunch of money just to find out whether floating down the Colorado River for several hours was actually their idea of fun.

They could just come out and get their feet wet.

Sometimes figuratively.

Definitely literally.

And more often than not, they’d have a great time.

Then something predictable happened.

They’d come along using somebody else’s spare tube for their first float.

Before the next trip, suddenly they had purchased their own tube.

Then maybe a cooler.

Then a better tube.

Then a dry bag.

Then a water gun.

Then a Bluetooth speaker.

Before long, the newbie wasn’t borrowing equipment anymore.

They were showing up with their own little collection of river gear.

And eventually, some of them became the people lending equipment to the next person who wanted to try tubing for the first time.

That’s how the obsession spread.

It wasn’t exactly an official membership process.

Nobody filled out an application.

There were no dues.

You didn’t need to own anything.

You basically just had to respond to a Facebook post, bring something to eat and drink, show up at the right place, and be willing to spend several hours floating down a river with a collection of people whose judgment was occasionally questionable.

We’d handle the rest.

Some of those people came once.

Others became part of that revolving cast for years.

And eventually, some of the people who started with:

“I don’t have a tube.”

became the people saying:

“Don’t worry about it. We’ve got an extra. Just bring your snacks and drinks.”

Looking back, maybe that’s one of the reasons those almost-weekly floats lasted as long as they did.

It wasn’t just an activity.

It became a little community.

When Different Worlds Collided

Then there were the people we didn’t know at all.

The river had its own way of introducing strangers.

In the wider sections, groups could spread out and peacefully do their own thing.

Then you’d hit one of the narrow sections of the river.

Suddenly, separate groups that had been floating independently for the last hour were converging into the same stretch of water.

Tubes collided.

Cooler rafts collided.

Ropes got tangled.

Someone’s foot ended up in somebody else’s tube.

Music from several different speakers competed for control of the river.

For the next few minutes, your little group had unexpectedly merged with another group of complete strangers.

Sometimes you’d separate almost immediately.

Other times you’d end up floating alongside each other for a while, talking, laughing, and temporarily becoming one giant dysfunctional river flotilla.

Then the river widened again, everyone slowly drifted apart, and you continued on your way.

No formal introductions required.

The Yuma Summer Problem

Of course, all of this foolishness was happening in Yuma.

And Yuma is hot.

Not “it’s a little warm outside” hot.

Not “maybe we should find some shade” hot.

Yuma summer is the kind of hot where opening your front door feels like somebody aimed a giant hair dryer directly at your face.

We weren’t talking about a pleasant 90-degree afternoon with a nice breeze.

There were days when we were heading toward the river with temperatures pushing 115, 116, even 118 degrees.

At that point, you’re no longer checking the weather forecast.

You’re checking to see what level of oven you’ve been preheated to.

You weren’t necessarily looking for some grand outdoor adventure.

You were looking for survival with recreational benefits.

That’s where the Colorado River came in.

You might be surrounded by desert with the air temperature approaching 118 degrees, but once you’re sitting in that tube with part of your body submerged in cool river water, life suddenly becomes considerably more tolerable.

The river was the escape.

Day Floats Required More of Everything

Night floats had glow sticks.

Day floats had sunblock.

Lots and lots of sunblock.

Daytime tubing meant considerably more preparation just to keep everyone from being slowly cooked during the trip.

More sunblock.

And then more sunblock because whatever amount you initially thought was enough probably wasn’t.

More drinking water.

An adult beverage or two might still find its way into the cooler, but when you’re spending several hours outside in temperatures that can reach 118 degrees, actual water becomes considerably more important.

And then there was the ice.

Lots of ice.

Ice for the coolers.

Ice for the drinks.

Ice to keep the drinking water cold.

And sometimes ice simply because when it’s 118 degrees outside, having a giant bag of frozen water nearby feels emotionally reassuring.

The cooler wasn’t merely there to hold beverages anymore.

It was practically life-support equipment.

Those daytime trips became a balancing act between enjoying the river and remembering that the desert was still trying its absolute best to roast you.

Reapply sunblock.

Drink water.

Get back in the river.

Find some shade if you could.

Drink more water.

Dump some cold water over your head.

Get sprayed by somebody with a water gun.

Reapply sunblock again.

Repeat.

And somehow we considered this recreation.

To be fair, we kept coming back almost every week, so apparently it was working.

Our Tubing Setup Got Increasingly Ridiculous

The early floats were relatively simple.

A tube.

A cooler.

Sunblock.

Water.

Ice.

Some food.

That was about it.

But when you’re doing something nearly every weekend, you inevitably start refining the process.

Eventually, things escalated.

Because apparently humans are incapable of enjoying a simple activity without eventually accessorizing it.

Coolers got their own tubes.

Ropes connected everyone together so the group didn’t slowly scatter across the river.

There were towels, waterproof bags, sunglasses, hats, water guns, speakers, food, drinks, and enough miscellaneous equipment that we occasionally looked less like people casually tubing down the Colorado and more like a poorly funded river expedition.

And naturally, we kept finding new things that absolutely needed to come with us.

When Snacks Became a Full-On River Cookout

Food started simple.

We’d grab tacos or burritos from one of the local Mexican restaurants before heading out.

Sometimes we’d bring Subway sandwiches.

Maybe some chips and snacks.

Whatever could survive being tossed into a cooler for several hours.

That worked perfectly fine.

But apparently after floating the river enough times, simply bringing food wasn’t enough.

We needed to cook food on the river.

So at some point, a small charcoal grill joined the growing list of things we considered completely reasonable tubing equipment.

We’d find a sandbar, pull the tubes over, unload everything, and set up what was essentially a miniature riverside cookout.

Hot dogs.

Burgers.

Cold drinks.

Music playing.

Everyone standing around in swimwear while a small charcoal grill did its best to compete with the already blazing Arizona sun.

Because apparently when it’s already 110-plus degrees outside, the obvious solution is to light a fire.

There was something ridiculous and wonderful about it.

We’d spend part of the day floating, stop at a sandbar, eat freshly grilled burgers and hot dogs, hang out for a while, then pack everything back up and continue downstream.

Eventually, even that wasn’t enough.

We brought the cornhole boards.

Yes.

Cornhole.

On a sandbar.

In Yuma.

In the middle of summer.

When it was more than 110 degrees outside.

Nothing says “relaxing escape from the heat” quite like voluntarily getting out of the cool river so you can stand on hot sand and throw beanbags at a wooden board.

But we did it anyway.

And we had fun.

By that point, we weren’t tubing anymore.

We were basically operating a mobile recreational facility on the Colorado River.

The Soundtrack Evolved Too

Of course, no float was complete without music.

And just like everything else about our tubing setup, the way we brought music onto the river evolved over the years.

In the early days, before waterproof Bluetooth speakers became cheap and easy to find, our solution involved a little ingenuity.

And Velcro.

We had a boombox Velcroed to the top of a cooler.

Was this the most technologically advanced solution?

Absolutely not.

Did it work?

Mostly.

And that was good enough.

There was something very 2010 about floating down the Colorado River with a stereo physically attached to a cooler while trying very hard not to think about the fact that electronics and river water generally aren’t known for having a healthy relationship.

Eventually technology caught up with our lifestyle choices.

The boombox gave way to small Bluetooth speakers.

Suddenly, there were fewer wires, less Velcro, and considerably less concern about accidentally sending an entire stereo system to the bottom of the Colorado River.

Then the speakers got bigger.

And louder.

Eventually we graduated to larger Bluetooth speakers capable of providing a soundtrack for our entire floating convoy.

Which created a new problem.

Just because the speaker could be loud enough for everyone between Yuma and Mexico to hear it didn’t mean it needed to be.

We tried to keep the volume under control.

The music was supposed to be part of the float, not completely take it over.

After all, some of the best parts of spending several hours on the river were the conversations.

The jokes.

The stories.

Catching up with people.

Meeting whoever happened to join the revolving cast of characters that weekend.

There needed to be enough music to create a soundtrack without making everyone yell at each other for four hours.

The playlists themselves could go anywhere.

Slow jams.

Hip-hop.

Throwbacks.

Party music.

And depending on who temporarily gained control of the Bluetooth connection, occasionally something that made everyone else ask:

“Who put this on?”

When I think about those floats now, I don’t just remember the river.

I remember the soundtrack.

And I remember that ridiculous boombox strapped to a cooler with Velcro.

River Warfare

Of course, peaceful floating wasn’t always enough.

At some point, somebody inevitably decided we needed weapons.

Water guns became pretty standard equipment.

On a 115-degree afternoon, getting sprayed with water wasn’t exactly an act of aggression.

It was practically a public service.

Water would start flying in every direction.

Someone would spray another tube.

That person would retaliate.

Then somebody completely uninvolved would get caught in the crossfire.

And suddenly everyone was participating in a water fight that nobody remembered officially starting.

Those narrow sections of the river made things even more entertaining because you weren’t just within range of your own group anymore.

You were within range of everybody.

Diplomatic relations between tubing groups could deteriorate rapidly.

Then there were the water balloons.

Yes, we threw water balloons at each other.

Looking back, those were an absolutely terrible idea because somebody eventually had to deal with all those little pieces of broken balloon.

We weren’t exactly thinking about that part at the time.

The thought process was considerably more sophisticated:

It’s hot.

We have water balloons.

Throw them.

Needless to say, that’s one tradition that deserved to disappear.

And then there were the marshmallows.

For whatever reason, tossing marshmallows around on the river became a thing.

At the time, it seemed relatively harmless and considerably better than water balloons.

Today, throwing anything into the river is understandably frowned upon, and I certainly wouldn’t recommend recreating it.

But this is a nostalgia post, not an attempt to pretend every decision we made fifteen years ago was environmentally enlightened.

We tossed marshmallows.

We threw water balloons.

We shot water guns in every direction.

We occasionally behaved like a group of adults who had collectively decided to stop being adults for the afternoon.

And somehow, we survived.

The River Has Its Own Schedule

One of the things I always enjoyed about tubing was that you couldn’t really rush it.

The river decided how fast you were going.

Sometimes the current moved along nicely.

Other times you entered a stretch where it seemed like the Colorado River had decided to take the afternoon off.

That’s when conversations started.

You’d talk about work.

Relationships.

Life.

Whatever ridiculous thing somebody had done the previous weekend.

Or absolutely nothing important whatsoever.

There were long stretches where nobody said much at all.

You just floated.

Listened to music.

Watched the riverbank go by.

Enjoyed being somewhere that wasn’t work, home, or sitting underneath an air-conditioning vent.

Then something ridiculous would happen.

And those were usually the moments that survived.

The Stories That Somehow Survived Too

When you do something almost every weekend with a revolving group of people, eventually you’re going to collect stories.

Lots of stories.

Some were funny.

Some were stupid.

Some were probably funnier because we were exhausted, sunbaked, and had been floating down a river for several hours.

And some became inside jokes that are still being referenced more than a decade later.

That’s probably one of my favorite things about looking back on that period.

People move away.

Friend groups change.

Careers change.

Life moves forward.

But somehow you can run into someone you haven’t seen in years, mention one random phrase from a river trip, and suddenly you’re both laughing like it happened last weekend.

There are stories from those floats that would take far too much explaining to make sense to anyone who wasn’t there.

And then there are some that probably shouldn’t be explained at all.

For example, there are still people out there who know the true meaning of the “Deep” section of the river.

That’s all I’m going to say about that.

If you know, you know.

And if you don’t…

You probably had to be there.

Some stories deserve to remain part of river mythology.

Sometimes We Took the Show on the Road

Eventually, apparently floating the same stretch of river almost every weekend wasn’t enough.

Every once in a while, we packed up the tubes, coolers, sunblock, enough drinking water to supply a small village, several bags of ice, and our questionable decision-making skills and ventured elsewhere.

One of those adventures was the annual Parker Tube Float.

Parker offered the familiar Colorado River experience but on a much larger scale.

Instead of our little group putting together a weekend float, you suddenly had an entire event built around the same basic concept.

Get in.

Float.

Try not to lose your friends.

Try not to lose your cooler.

Eventually locate dry land.

We also made trips north for the Laughlin River Regatta, back when it was still an annual event.

That took the river-party concept and turned the volume considerably higher.

Thousands of people descended onto the Colorado River with tubes, rafts, coolers, costumes, music, and just about anything else that could reasonably—or sometimes questionably—float.

The Laughlin River Regatta is now defunct, which adds another layer of nostalgia to those memories.

You can’t simply decide to go back and recreate that particular experience.

It belongs to a certain time.

Then there was the Salt River.

The Salt River was a different animal.

Compared with our generally leisurely Yuma floats, tubing the Salt River could feel considerably more aggressive.

There was more current.

More movement.

And a little less opportunity to simply lean back and assume the river would politely deliver you to your destination.

Yuma was the lazy Sunday afternoon.

The Salt River occasionally felt like the river had somewhere to be and didn’t particularly care whether you were prepared for the trip.

Same tube.

Same cooler.

Same basic idea.

Slightly greater chance of discovering just how securely you had attached everything.

Those trips made tubing into more than something we did to escape the Yuma heat.

It became an excuse for a road trip.

Parker.

Laughlin.

The Salt River.

Different stretches of water, different crowds, and very different personalities—but the same simple idea at the center of all of them:

Grab some friends, find some water, and spend the day floating away from your normal responsibilities.

Moving Away Didn’t End the Tradition

Eventually, life changed.

In 2016, I moved away from Yuma.

You might think putting a few hours of highway between me and the Colorado River would have finally ended an obsession that started six years earlier.

Apparently, you would be underestimating my willingness to drive several hours just to sit in an inner tube.

Even after moving away, I’ve made the drive back down to Yuma on occasion to reconnect with old friends and float the Colorado like the old days.

Those trips feel different now.

Back then, the river was practically in my backyard.

We could decide to float because it was Saturday, it was hot, and nobody had anything better to do.

Sometimes all it took was a Facebook post asking who wanted to go.

Now, going back requires some intention.

It’s a road trip.

It’s making plans with people I may not get to see as often anymore.

It’s loading up the river gear and heading south toward a place that was once home.

And when we finally get back into the water, some of those years in between seem to disappear.

The group may be a little older.

Life is certainly more complicated.

Our responsibilities have changed.

We definitely take hydration and sunblock a little more seriously than we did in 2010.

And the marshmallows and water balloons can stay in the past where they belong.

But for a few hours, we’re floating down the same Colorado River, telling stories, listening to music, laughing, and pretending we’re back in those summers when this was almost a weekly occurrence.

At this point, the trip isn’t really just about tubing anymore.

It’s about reconnecting with friends.

It’s about reconnecting with Yuma.

And maybe, in a small way, it’s about reconnecting with the person I was when all of this started.

The Salt River Became the Local Option

Fortunately, moving away from Yuma didn’t mean giving up tubing completely.

The Salt River became my local option.

I’ve floated it on occasion over the years when I needed my river fix without committing to the drive all the way back down to Yuma.

Of course, the Salt River still isn’t the Colorado.

And it definitely isn’t the same float.

The Colorado around Yuma generally lets you settle in, relax, and contemplate how little you intend to accomplish for the remainder of the afternoon.

The Salt River occasionally reminds you that you are, in fact, floating down a moving body of water and should probably pay attention.

It’s faster.

A little more aggressive.

And sometimes a little more adventurous.

But it scratches the itch.

When summer arrives and I start thinking that I haven’t spent nearly enough time sitting in an inflatable piece of rubber while being carried downstream, the Salt River is there.

It’s the local version of an old tradition.

More Than Just Floating

Looking back, the funny thing is that I don’t remember every individual float.

There were simply too many of them.

Especially during those summers when it felt like we were back on the river almost every weekend.

They all sort of blend together.

I couldn’t tell you exactly what year some of them happened.

I couldn’t tell you what we talked about.

What music was playing.

Or even who was there every single time.

But I remember the feeling.

Hot Yuma afternoons.

The Colorado River.

Sun reflecting off the water.

Music coming from the speaker.

The ridiculous boombox Velcroed to a cooler.

Tacos and burritos.

Subway sandwiches.

Eventually burgers and hot dogs cooked on a sandbar.

Cornhole in 110-degree heat because apparently we weren’t already warm enough.

Water guns spraying in every direction.

Marshmallows flying through the air.

The ill-advised water balloons.

Coolers floating alongside us.

Random groups colliding together in the narrow sections.

The revolving cast of people who showed up from one weekend to another.

The newbies who arrived with nothing but snacks and drinks, borrowed a tube, and came back the next weekend with their own gear.

And sometimes the whole adventure beginning with nothing more than:

“Anybody floating on Saturday?”

That’s one of the things I miss most about that period.

How easy it was.

You could toss a question onto Facebook and, by the weekend, have a group of people floating down the Colorado together.

No grand plan.

No major expense.

You didn’t even need to own a tube your first time.

Just somebody suggesting an idea and enough people saying:

“Yeah, I’m in.”

Those random afternoons became stories.

The stories became inside jokes.

And somehow some of those jokes have survived for more than a decade.

Even though Yuma wasn’t my hometown, I got to introduce people to something in their own backyard—or remind them about something they hadn’t done since they were younger.

In a strange way, discovering Yuma for myself gave me an excuse to help other people rediscover it.

At the time, none of this felt particularly special.

It was just what we did.

Summer arrived.

Yuma got unbearably hot.

Someone posted on Facebook asking who wanted to float.

And apparently I responded by spending as many weekends as possible sitting in an inner tube.

Years later, I realize that’s exactly what made it special.

Coming Back to the River

These days, travel for me might mean getting on an airplane, boarding a cruise ship, wandering around another country, or spending months planning an adventure halfway across the world.

But there’s something different about getting in the car and driving back to Yuma to float that same stretch of the Colorado River again.

It isn’t really about discovering somewhere new.

It’s about returning somewhere familiar.

It’s seeing old friends.

It’s revisiting a place that was once home.

And it’s remembering a period of life when entertainment didn’t need to be elaborate or expensive to be memorable.

For a few hours, I’m reminded of that younger version of myself in the summer of 2010 who discovered something incredibly simple and somehow turned it into an obsession.

No passport.

No flight.

No cruise ship.

No elaborate itinerary.

Sometimes not even much advance planning.

Just a Facebook post.

Some friends.

A tube.

A cooler packed with ice and water.

And one of the few places you could hide from a 118-degree Yuma summer day without spending the entire afternoon inside an air-conditioned building.

Looking back, though, it wasn’t really the tubes or even the river that made those summers memorable.

It was the people.

The revolving cast of friends who came along.

The locals I somehow ended up introducing to their own river.

The newbies who didn’t have any gear but were welcomed anyway.

The people who borrowed a tube once and then started building their own collection.

The random groups we collided with in narrow sections and temporarily adopted into our flotilla.

The water-gun battles.

The questionable marshmallow warfare.

The even more questionable water balloons.

The food.

The cookouts.

The music.

The coolers.

The conversations.

And the completely ridiculous things that happened along the way.

Those moments became stories.

The stories became inside jokes.

And somehow some of those jokes have survived for more than a decade.

The night floats eventually became their own tradition—with glow sticks, music, darkness, an occasional adult beverage, and the Once in a Blue Moon Float.

The road trips to Parker, Laughlin, and the Salt River made the obsession a little bigger.

Moving away in 2016 changed the frequency, but apparently it didn’t cure the obsession.

Now the Salt River is nearby when I want a local float.

And every so often, the Colorado River gives me a reason to point the car south and head back to Yuma.

But the Yuma day floats will always be the original.

They were simple.

They were cheap.

They required considerably more sunblock, drinking water, and ice than any reasonable afternoon activity should.

They were ridiculously hot until you hit the water.

And for a while, they were practically a weekly appointment.

Part of travel is discovering places you’ve never been.

Sometimes it’s about returning to a place you’ve been a hundred times and realizing just how much your life has changed since you were last there.

Sometimes it’s about looking at the place you already live with the eyes of someone who just arrived.

And sometimes it’s simply about getting together with old friends, climbing back into the river, and trying to recapture a little bit of the old days.

For me, floating the river is a little bit of all of those things.

It’s a cheap retreat from the desert heat.

It’s an afternoon on the water.

It’s an excuse for a road trip.

It’s an opportunity to introduce someone to an adventure that’s been sitting in their backyard their entire life.

It’s a reason to reconnect with old friends.

And now, more than fifteen years after that first summer in 2010, it’s pure nostalgia—a chance to revisit a simpler time when sometimes an entire weekend adventure started with one sentence on Facebook:

“Does anybody want to float this weekend?”

And if you didn’t have a tube?

That was fine too.

Just bring your snacks and drinks. We probably have an extra.

And to those select few who still know what “Deep” really means…

Some river stories are better left on the river.

Sometimes the best adventures don’t require much.

And sometimes, a weekend really is enough.