Day 7: Whitewater rafting!

Sunset in gold country
Hell's Hole! click to enlarge! there's actually seven people in the boat! front right is getting wet!
sunrise over Lewiston Lake
Woke up to tons of bird noises and an insanely quiet, glassy lake. Walked around a bit and headed to Big Flat to white water raft! We made reservations the afternoon before here and were super excited! We went to Trinity River and chose Wilderness Adventures. We got 10% for going during the week, so it was only 75 bucks each for a full day! Pretty pumped, cuz other companies seemed to be more around 100 bucks for full days. We headed out at 9:30 I think and were with two other couples (in their 40s and 50s, and seemed pretty cool) and the guide, Ronnie, who grew up there. We got going rafting and I could tell Mel was nervous. We were in the back though so we were ok I figured. At the first rapids, the lady up front got bumped out, but handled it. The rapids were pretty scattered throughout the river, and pretty fun. All class I through III rapids, so nothing to scary or dangerous or anything. It was super hot here, making it the first spot on our vacation where we were hot. The water was really cold so it felt awesome and we could jump out of the raft here and there to cool off. We saw a ton of fish and even a bald eagle! Lookin proud as ever. The best rapid was Hell Hole – a 10 or 12 foot drop over some big boulders. The whole raft was vertical when we went over, and it totally filled with water in the landing! We all stayed in and I wished we could do it again. We stopped for lunch right after it and got to watch many others go over it which was hilarious. The lunch spread was insane. Lots of fruit and veggies with dip for an appetizer. Then a full deli spread with veggie patties, and tofu, and then every veggie you could think of to put on the sandwich, alogn with cheeses. Drinks too. Mel and I stuffed ourselves, for sure more than the others were, but I didn’t care. Then we got dessert- strawberries with chocolate sauce and some coconut ball things. Seriously, the food was incredible. The only thing that was bad was that there were a lot of leftover veggies, fruits, and stuff from the deli spread, and it all got tossed! Both Mel and my jaws dropped when we saw him dump it into a trash bag. We seriously stuffed ourselves so there was no way we coulda eaten more, which was good, but still, we wished they woulda saved all that somehow. We continued on and finished our trip around 3, a bit early, but we were beat. Then we cruised back through Weaverville, got more ice cream, and headed south! We decided to go to Big Sur next, because we didn’t know what to do up north and inland. The highway felt good as it was nice to be on a straight road. The sunset along the way was nice too. We thought about staying at Clear Lake that night, but realized it was a bit too far out of the way, so we pressed on. Then we almost camped at another lake, but it was super windy when we pulled up so we headed onward! We finally stopped in a parking lot in Monterey and slept in the car because there weren’t any camp spots we knew of anywhere nearby. It was late so we both ended up sleeping really well so it was actually ok, not ideal, but ok.