We woke up this morning to a wet day with actual hail – unusual for Memorial Day.  Starting out with the bottom of my pants wet and sandy was not very exciting.

I went down to the river and just washed them off.  We were going to get wet anyway.  Audrey was dressed for the wet and cold…

… as were Pat, Mike, and Liz.

But, wait! Is that sun coming through in the distance?

Not really.

It was Mija’s turn to brush her teeth on the raft…

… and braid her hair.

I don’t know whose hand that was sticking out of the tarp but Liz was clearly wet.

Aud did not look very happy.

Then we ran a rapid.  Sue looks like she is hanging on in Duffy’s raft…

…and Ken looked like he had fun going through that one.

I love these rock structures.

Everybody was pretty cold and the weather looked ominous…

 

…so we made an early stop.  Kirsten led us in warm up exercises.

 

Audrey was trying to dry her pants that got wet in spite of the rain pants.  I laughed out loud as I was uploading this photo.

 

We walked around after lunch and saw these beautiful flowers.

Ken took a great photo of a Sacred Datura rolled-up before opening.

It was a quick lunch and we were on our way again.

Rain or not we had great views of the canyon …

 

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…and rock formations.

If we wanted to fill a water bottle, we had to get onto the edge of the raft.

There must have been some sunshine because this rock formation is slightly reflecting in the water.

I love the pink color in the rocks.

I am pretty confused about where we actually had lunch but I know we must have docked again because we saw more fossils…

…and we climbed up a hill to watch some smaller vessels come through the rapids.

 

It must have been very exciting (and totally wet) to go through in those small boats.  I know there was a kayak down there but I didn’t have my Lumix with me to zoom in close enough.

We took a walk up the creek-bed through the water (we were wet anyway) to see a small waterfalls.  I think it was Stone Creek Falls .  I love taking photos of the people so I was clicking away…

Panoramas of waterfalls make the water look strange.

I wish I could remember but I think this was Stone Creek Falls.

Wet  and cold were the words for the day.  

Food was served under the umbrella.

In spite of the weather, the views were great.

What a cool cave in the rock.

That passage was a bit narrow.

Ken took a photo of this Pirate Dory.

I may be very confused but I think we also walked to Deer Creek Falls because the time stamp on the photos was different.

Getting back from this one was even wetter.

Bernie and Eliaine were happy even though we were so wet and cold.

 

We stopped early (after only about 17 miles of river) at about mile 137.  Emily said the campground was called Football Field.

Funny how the sun came out just as we docked.

 

Most people in our group set up camp pretty close to the water.

 

Even Emily/Mija and Duffy/Kirsten even set up tents on their rafts.

Ann and I found a pretty secluded spot.

 

Sun Setting on the rocks was so beautiful. It even reflected into the water.

A great ending to a rainy, cold day.