LA: I’m gonna get more to that story in a bit because it is truly fascinating. Um, but I wanted to know a little bit more about your experience first. I mean it’s an extraordinary journey. I don’t think many people get to do that. And also, I didn’t, I don’t think I quite understood how big, this sounds really silly, but like how big the Grand Canyon is not in, in the depth but in the, the length of it.
MS: Yeah, it’s, it’s huge. Um, it takes about two weeks on an oar trip so a trip where, where they’re rowing the boats with oars to get through the Grand Canyon. It just keeps going and going.
LA: And you were using oars.
MS: Well, not me personally, but my boatman, the person who was rowing my boat was using the oars. Yes. Yeah, so they weren’t very big boats so these kind of rubber rafts and there would be two of us in a boat, one person rowing and me, um, bailing. My job was to … One of the boats didn’t, uh, didn’t bail itself so I had to bail it with a, with a bucket any time we went through a rapid.
LA: I was gonna say, what is bailing because in my head it’s sort of very much like a pirate’s at sea throwing water out.
MS: Yes, that’s exactly what it is. We would go through a rapid, the boat would fill up with water and as we were still going through the rapid I would get the bucket and I’d toss all that water out. Because it makes the boat very heavy and hard to maneuver.
LA: Were you comfortable on the rapids? Did they feel scary?
MS: I was terrified. I, I’d never done anything like that before.
LA: I’m kinda actually honestly relieved to hear you say that because you were speaking about it with such authority and confidence I was like, oh God, I’m such a weed ’cause I would be terrified.
MS: No, I was terrified. I think it was good that I was terrified because, um, I’m sure Lois and Elzada must’ve been terrified too. Like they were going down the river at a time when, you know, hardly anybody had done this trip and there weren’t really good maps and there were these clunky wooden boats. And they must have been terrified and so I’m, I’m glad I felt that way, um, because I think I was able to channel what they felt on their trip.
