Here in Salida, CO on the beautiful Arkansas River we are currently enjoying the annual rafting and kayaking festival called Fibark. I’ve talked in the past about life insurance underwriting takes on hobbies such as skydiving and scuba diving. I’d like to talk about rafting and kayaking and why they aren’t, but possibly should be on the same list as, say, climbing Mt Everest.

Ever hear of a rafting rodeo? Me too. My wife and I went to the rafting rodeo at Fibark yesterday expecting that we would see rafters doing tricks in their rafts. But no. This was a free for all raft fight with people jumping on other boats and throwing people out and taking their rafts away, or just ramming them and tipping them over. The final round went on for 7 minutes and amazingly everyone lived to talk about it.

I tried kayaking once. A “friend” had a kayak and told me he would teach me on the Gray’s River in Wyoming…..during spring runoff. He sort of explained how you should kind of lean down river (completely unnatural response to what’s happening) and how to turn right side up if you happened to flip over. In I went and within 10 seconds I was upside down in a fast flowing muddy river.

He had told me it could be a little disorienting, being upside down, but to look for the light which would indicated the direction I wanted to work my paddle in order to get back up. Well, I am here to tell you that in the Gray’s River that time of year light doesn’t penetrate the muddy water as far as my head was under it. So I bailed out and rescued my friend’s raft. We did that 5 or 6 times before I decided that kayaking was right up their with being shot out of a cannon….at a brick wall.

Bottom line. There really isn’t any. Kayaking and rafting aren’t rateable hobbies for life insurance purposes and my posts on Friday tend to be a little off key. But, it is Friday and it is Fibark. Stop in next year and watch a fun week of whitewater craziness.