Well I never had a doubt what the destination would be if I was ever selected as the Honored Mate. I always wanted go down the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon. The crew was Jof Abshire, Robert Brough, Bob Ellenwood, Jeff Sedenko, Wyatt Wolfe, Joe Zuccolotto and of course your truly, Ian Mackenzie.
The trip became officially known as the TGT Grand Canyon/Colorado River/Las Vegas 2015 trip. Brough designed a killer logo to mark the trip. Since we had gotten away from doing logo shirts on the last two trips I felt it was necessary to supply them this year.
The prayer was as follows:
The Grand Canyon Colorado River Las Vegas Prayer
May the TGT 2015 Crew be kept safe
Thy mighty river run fast and true
Thy canyon be seen for all is glory and might
In Vegas as in Heaven may we have the luck of the Irish
Give us great friendship and forgive he who hosted this evening
For thine is the river, the canyon and craps table
For ever and ever. Amen
We all met on Friday two days before the river trip in Las Vegas where Joe pulled some strings and scored a deal at the Aria. I knew we would need a day to recover from the honored mate ceremony so Friday was the night. Again, I never doubted who I would select as Honored Mate, it had to be Sedenko. We are both late arrivals to the TGT Crew and it was a natural choice.
Saturday was a day to recover from the previous night and I think we were all glad to have that day (some needed it more than others). When it came time to decide if we wanted to pack beer to the canyon we decided against it. I believe that decision was made due to the long evening prior to our departure. This led to a pretty comical situation. We joined others on this trip and I am sure when they took a look at the 7 of us they assumed we were a rowdy drinking group. I believe we were the only tea teetotalers of the group out of two rafts making the trek.
Sunday we got up at 4:30am and started our river adventure. We traveled by taxi to the pick up spot where we boarded a bus to take us to the Boulder, Nevada airport. We then boarded a small plane (a Twin Otter according to the pilot in our group) and flew to Bar 10 Ranch. We boarded a helicopter where we where whisked into the canyon at Mile 188, known as Whitmore Wash.
We spent three fun filled days and two nights on the river. The wind would pick up in the evenings just as it was time to set up the tents making it a challenge and it seemed to stop shortly after we got the tents up. The guides were excellent and the food was top notch.
At the end of our trip we were boarded a jet boat and taken from Pearce Ferry (Mile 277) to Lake Mead where we boarded a bus and headed back to Las Vegas. Again, Joe had managed to come through for us and we checked back into the Aria for the last two nights.
The last evening we all went to the Hofbräu House for dinner. It was about a 2 mile walk (although Brough promised that it was just down the street). We had a feisty barmaid that provided entertainment at the painful expense of Ellenwood and Sedenko. Joe was somehow able to persuade the limo service at the Hard Rock Cafe to give us a ride back to the Aria. We rowed the mighty river like Las Vegas rockstars and lived to tell the tale!
Ian