Finding Lost Gold

I recently came back from a week long trip to Oregon. We started the big drive up to Oregon on Tuesday night and arrived in Roseburg at 10:30 AM. After breakfast, the entire household went to sleep. I didn't want to sleep so Joe and I decided to go on an adventure.

We brought a plastic pond bucket and used it to travel down the river. We took turns sitting in the small circular bucket and pulling each other through the cold water. It was tons of fun! There were rapids to go over, fish to see, and refreshing water to wade in. We traveled quite far.

It was my turn to be in the bucket. I was tired of swimming so Joe was taking his turn pulling me down the river. We came to a spot of rapids. Joe had flipped over once so we were more cautious this time. Joe tried to navigate me over and through the rapids without my falling over. He did it! I soared through the rapids right side up.

All of a sudden, Joe started yelling from behind me, "I lost my ring!" I turned around in my raft and yelled back to him, "Are you serious?" No answer. I continued to yell. "What did you say?" He didn't respond. His head was down and he was grabbing into the rapids. Finally, he lifted his head and yelled to me, "Come and help me!" So like an obedient wife I flung myself from the black bucket and began to swim into the rapids, giving up on the bucket after I couldn't pull it out of the water, too heavy. My arms burned after 10 minutes of swimming against the current. I couldn't touch and was beginning to get scared. It didn't seem like I'd moved at all. Joe looked up from his searching and told me to hurry. Out of breath, I yelled, "I am trying! Help!" So like the sweet husband he is, he jumped in the deep water and pulled me to safety.

We then proceeded to search for the wedding ring that Joe had accidentally lost in the surging rapids that had pulled it off his finger. We searched and sifted and tossed out rocks, but the water was white from going too fast and we couldn't see anything. We decided to head back to the house for more supplies. After my bout with the rapids, Joe thought it best to walk back instead of swimming. We started walking through someone's property but were forced to go up to the road due to shrubbery. The ground was hot! I thought the skin of my feet was going to melt off! We yelped and moaned and continued to run across the steaming hot asphalt. After a lot of pain, we made it home, wet and clad only in our bathing suits. Everyone was up by now since it was three and a half hours later so we told them what had happened. We collected buckets and ran to the store for some goggles. We drove back to the spot on the river with Joe's dad and sister. After struggling to the spot where the ring had been lost, we started throwing out the river rocks and looking among the crayfish to where the ring might be. We searched for an hour with no luck when finally Joe shot his hand triumphantly into the air, his ring between his fingers. He grabbed me in his arms, and we cheered. The ring that was lost had been found! ;-) We didn't think it was possible but were so thankful. We even found the black bucket we'd used as a boat. It turned out to be a wonderful day!