I recently bought a Sea Eagle kayak off eBay.  We took it with us to the lake a few weeks back and had some fun on the lake.  I decided to try our luck on a river and we took it down the lower Salt River this weekend.  It was a lot of fun and we learned some tricks for the future.  The number one impression I had was shock that I had never taken advantage of this experience before while living 20-30 minutes away from it for almost my whole life.  Needless to say, we had a lot of fun and we decided to make it a regular adventure in the future.

While the tubers were a distractio n and the pollution they generate is disheartening, they were somewhat a source of entertainment.  It was like going to the zoo, you go to see the animals.  It was like navigating an obstacle to avoid them and many of them were so drunk after a few hundred yards that they weren't capable of much.  One thing that really surprised us is the place that marshmallows had in their river experience.  They were playing baseball with them or something, such that there were hundreds, maybe thousands littering the water.  And then Coronado would have thought he'd found El Dorado with all the beer cans shining on the river's bottom.  We were fortunately able to move much faster than the tubers, so once they started to thin out, we were able to enjoy the river a lot more.  We saw river otters, blue herons, red-winged blackbirds, and even a group of wild horses. 

Once the tubers exited the river, we had a very peaceful ride and it was like we had the whole river to ourselves.  I had never been down the river before, so I didn't really know the landmarks well except for what I'd read online and briefly seen on Google maps.  As we made our way down the latter stretch of the river, Jessica became concerned that we were going to miss our exit.  She even made me get out and check because she was convinced that we had reached our exit, but we were only at Phon D Sutton.  Beyond that point, the river started to widen and slow down and we had to paddle the rest of the way.  We ended up doing the whole 13.5 mile stretch in 4 hours and now we know what to expect next time.  We left a car at the Granite Reef recreation area and then one at the top, with Tonto passes on both.  I really enjoyed our little kayak and am looking for more places to take it.  One of the best things about it is that we exited the river and were driving away within a couple minutes, as it collapsed quickly and I tossed everything into the back of the truck.