We thought the sun would stay out all day, we thought we would be fine. We were wrong of course. I wish we could have seen it coming, and paid more attention, but it was too late. We had already tipped, lives were now at stake. 

Swimsuits and life vests were on paddles in hand. We were all ready, physically, but I wasn’t ready mentally. I was focusing on The Colorado River that sat just a few feet in front of us. On this hot summer day, the river was far from calm. The freezing, cold water splashed up against the rocky mountain on the left and the slanted rock hill on the right sides. The splashing sound was loud and it would get louder as others made their way down in rafts and kayaks of their own. You could also hear the rushing cars from the highway up above but I was so focused on the river I zoned that. As I stared at the river all I could think about was what could go wrong, every possible bad outcome was running through my head, raising my anxiety by the second. Now it may have been my first time rafting but not for Nottingham's. They go almost every weekend. So they must know what they're doing. Right? 

“We have never tipped before but that doesn’t mean that this time won’t be the first.” This is really what I remembered from Mr. Nottingham’s speech. Out of a long 5-minute speech, I was only thinking of this one sentence. It stuck with me in a good and bad way. Good because if they have never tipped, why would this time be any different? Although on the other hand, just because they have never tipped, doesn’t mean that we won’t tip today. 

“Alright well that’s about it, everyone ready?” Mr. Nottingham asked, putting to thumbs up with a big smile, showing off everyone one of his white teeth.” I didn’t say anything back instead I just gave a worried smile, not concerned about hiding my nervousness. Everyone seemed pretty excited. It may have been because they have all rafted before. 

“Alright then let’s get going!” 

Alright, here we go I guess. We all made our way over to where the raft sat. It wasn’t in the water yet so we all stood around the raft, reached down, and grabbed the side of the raft. 

“3..2..1, Lift!” We all lifted and walked over to the river, we waited till just our feet were in the water to slowly set it in the water. We each got into the raft, grabbed the paddles and we were off. The cold, snow water that had melted down into the river splashed all over us as we bumped right and left in the river. And let me tell you that I have never felt anything so cold in my life. 

Not too far down the river is where things turned for the worse. Ms. Nottingham was not in the raft with the rest of us. She was in a small yellow, banana-looking kayak and she was a bit ahead of the rest of us. We were approaching a rapid no different from the others we had gone through in the past. We watched as Ms. Nottingham went through the rapid and before we knew it she was in the water, she had tipped over! We were so in shock and worried we must have forgotten that we were going over that same rapid just seconds from now. No one was paying attention as a result we went in sideways and…. “Help, get me out! Somebody help me!”  

We noticed Henry screaming and yelling in the water first. We told him not to even bother trying to get back to us and just to swim or float to his mom, Ms.Nottingham who was not too far away, and managed to get onto a small piece of land on the left side of the river. That’s when I noticed who else was in the water. My dad, my sister but scariest of all Elizebeth, an 18-month-old baby.  Before we fell in Olivia, my sister was holding Elizebeth, and she held onto that baby with her life. Her blue crocks slipped off from her feet and down the river but she wasn’t even fazed by that; she was only weird about Elizebeth and her life. It was clear that nothing would distract her from saving that baby. 

When I noticed that they were also in the water I started shouting and yelling, “DAD! DAD! LOOK OVER, YOU'RE NOT IN THE WATER ALONE, LOOK OVER!” You could see the fear in his eyes as he heard what I was yelling and turned to see Olivia and Elizbeth in the water ‘floating’ alongside him. As soon as he noticed them something turned on inside of him. He used every muscle in his body and swam against the rushing, rapids, and water over to the girls. He grabbed them and swam just a bit further over to the right side of the river where they now sat at the bottom of this rocky hill, cold and scared. 

Mr. Nottingham was still on the raft with me. He tried to paddle over to the slanted, rocky hill where they sat but the current was too strong. Although he was able to paddle the raft over to where Henry and Ms. Nottinghamgot had ended up on the left side of the river. We were never able to get my dad, Olivia, and Elizebeth back onto the raft. I doubt they would even want to step foot in the raft, especially after how hard it was to get Henry back into the raft. 

“There’s no way we are going to be able to get any of you back onto this raft.” Mr. Nottingham yelled from where we were able to stop the raft. 

“I think we're fine with that, I think we're just going to climb up this hill somehow and walk on the path back to the cars.” My dad answered back. 

They were able to get up the hill with some help from this stranger that happen to walk by with a rope. Why he had the rope? I couldn’t tell you, but thank goddess he did. He throw the rope down the hill and tied on end to a tree on the top of the hill. It wasn’t easy getting up the hill. My dad climb up a bit then Olivia handed Elizebeth to him. Then Olivia would climb a bit away then my dad would hand Elizebeth over. They did this all the way up to the top of the hill.  When they finally were at the top of the hill Elizebeth, now in my dad’s hand and all the life vests still on them even though they were out of the water, and Olivia shoeless, began to walk back on the path leading their way back to the cars. The rest of us are still down in the raft. Slowly made our way down the rest of the river. We made it to where we had planned on stopping all along. Not said much of anything at first. We were still cold and in shock most of all. But we were out and we were ok and that’s all that mattered. And after this even though I never even fell in I don’t plan on going rafting anytime soon and I wouldn’t be all that surprised if everyone else felt the same way.