But getting back into the swing of normal working life, unpacking/cleaning/re-storing a
mountain of sandy river and camping gear, sifting through over 300 pictures (!)—and all this done against a 100+° heat backdrop—well, let's just say that it's just not proceeding very quickly.The scenery along the river was so spectacular I'm lucky not to have taken 3 times as many photos. And I will get the best of them into a blog post for you soon, so you can get at least some idea of what we were able to see.
But in the meantime I thought I'd relate some of the more mundane details of the trip: how we
packed up the raft, what camping was like along the river, what we ate, how our enjoyable hours off the river were passed, etc.The picture above on the right shows our little party's craft. We had two guys in solo canoes, one in a kayak, two folks in a tandem canoe, and Henry and I in the big blue cataraft that somewhat dominates the scene.
On the left is this merry band of folks off the river, waiting here during our first night out, for our cobbler dessert to finish cooking.
The dutch oven that cooked the cobbler (you can see it near Henry's feet in the picture above) was at work again the next evening, this time presenting us with an incredibly yummy chicken casserole. As you can probably surmise, we ate very well at all our meals, thanks to the organizational abilities of Michael and Chris, the tandem canoists, who ran the chuck-wagon operation flawlessly.
The fire setup you see above here is actually pretty interesting. The cast-iron oven is sitting on a mature charcoal fire (we took the coals with us in case enough downed wood wasn't available). The coals are gathered in a handy bar-b-que pit—a steel drum lid that worked perfectly in that capacity. Then, everything is sitting on a "fire blanket," an item of camping gear I'd never even heard of before this trip. Some campgrounds, in some conditions, require them for campfires as a 
precaution against forest/range/grass fires getting started. It's made out of the same material fire-fighters' suits are made of.Primitive camping, this is definitely not.
That goes for our personal accommodations as well. Our brand-new tent worked perfectly and was so easy to put up and take down that I was almost able to take care of those chores by myself. I've never been able to do that! It was not only cozy, warm and dry, but the with my super mattress pad inside, it was a very comfortable place to sleep as well.
Our libations were as first rate as our gear. In addition to a batch of Henry's famous margaritas, on the right here you can see the quite tasty wine we had before dinner Saturday. Not only is boxed wine no longer necessarily at the bottom of the barrel, wine-quality-wise (like it was in my youth) but it obviously can come with one of the cleverest names in a field crowded with clever names.
Special kudos to Michael for making us personalized cups, some of which you see here, that served all our drinking needs.
Now, back to the boat. Which not only carried a lion's share of this great food, drink, and the means for preparing it, but also us, and in style.
Here's a closeup of the raft, now back at the put-in, almost fully loaded with gear, and almost ready—finally—to launch.
My queen-like seat is at the front of the boat, on top of our new giant cooler, which is topped with my super-duper sleeping pad and a surprisingly comfy little stadium seat. What a great view I had! And no paddling was required, as Henry took care of all the locomotion that the river didn't provide with the oars (those oars he took lessons with back in Salida, if you'll recall). Here he is taking a break from this rather tiring activity:
The lessons were well worth the time and money, as he did an excellent job guiding us down the river.While leaving me free to take those 300 pictures. I'll try to have some to show you later this week.
As a final shot today, though, I leave you with Henry and Mike paying their thanks to the river goddess for a fun, successful, and safe trip, after packing up the cars at the take-out ramp. Those are sips of the last beers left in the cooler that they're sacrificing to the Chama. I thought it was the least they could do...
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