Happy Birthday Dad!

Saturday the 10th was my dad's birthday, and a quite memorable one for him and mom (you should ask them about it!). They are in Sedona, AZ now celebrating and scoping out the scene there.

This picture was taken in Mexico with my whole mother's side of the family on vacation. I love that my family travels regularly to see different parts of the world.

One of the highlights of my life was a trip with my dad between my sophomore and junior year of high school. We went to Germany, Luxembourg, France, Egypt, South Africa, Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Kenya, and Amsterdam. It was ridiculous!! How many daughters get to share experiences like this with their dad?

The low point of the trip, yet our favorite story to tell, was when we went white water rafting on the Zambezi River. We had never been rafting, but an older couple recommended it, so we blindly signed up. Little did we know that this is one of the premier rafting places in the world because of all of the Grade 5, 5.5, and 6. It is a grade 5 river which means "Extremely difficult, long and violent rapids, steep gradients, big drops, pressure areas." It is believed to be the wildest one day course in the world. If we had known that I like to think we wouldn't have signed up. But we didn't, so we did...

For some reason in our raft no one but the "guide" (used very loosely) had a paddle. So all we could do was hold on and throw our bodies in whatever direction we were told.

The first rapid was called "The Boiling Pot". The start of the rapids was a waterfall which immediately flipped our raft, catapulting my father and the rest of us into the water. My glasses were ripped off my face (thankfully I had tied a string between my glasses and raft) and I was shot into a whirlpool. Seriously, I couldn't get out and I thought I was going to die. It seemed like forever that I was underwater. Of course I fought it which they tell you not to do. Miraculously I was ejected at some point and managed to ride through the rest of the rapids with the aid of my vest. It was not fun. When I got through to the rest of the group I found my dad all mangled as well. So I cried. I thought, "If we couldn't even make it through the first Grade 4 rapid without flipping, what else is in store for us? So much for a fun day of rafting."

By some miracle we stayed upright through some horrible Grade 5 rapids while our guide was warning us that we had a very big obstacle ahead. Number 9 was called "Commercial Suicide" and every rafting company except ours walked around it for obvious reasons. All I wanted to do was walk around, but instead we warned to hold on tight and follow our instructions. I was terrified so I held on with every muscle in my body to no avail as we once again flipped. Of course, I couldn't hold onto an upside-down raft for long because of the strength of the rapids and waterfalls. So off I go into what I thought was my certain demise. By some miracle I lived and caught up with the raft again at a calm before round 2 of this rapid. We didn't have time to flip the raft over, so we went through the rest of the grade 5 on an upside down raft with one string to hold onto. I was sobbing while my dad was bleeding and banged up. The "guide" actually held me onto the raft through the second series of rapids and by God's grace we didn't flip again.

We had paid for a whole day of this "fun" but I demanded that we quit at the half-way point where we could hike up the side of the gorge and catch a van back. We bought the video to prove that we indeed experienced all of this.

Regardless of the experience, we had an amazing trip together. We took the Blue Train between Praetoria, South Africa and Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe. It is the most luxurious train in the world. We had a butler and an amazing cabin in addition to the reading and dining cabins. Also on this trip we ate at Carnivore Restaurant where we tried zebra, giraffe, kudu, ostrich and many other exotic meats.

It would take all day to talk about all the great memories we made on this trip. Thanks dad for all the great experiences and memories we've had together! Happy Birthday!