If you have never “floated” or “gone tubing” down your nearest river…’tis the season!!! My friends and I recently drove over to our local river (the Delaware) for a day of floating fun; however, instead of renting tubes, we decided to rent inflatable rafts with oars so we could control our journey down stream.

Personally, I found that the benefits of the raft far outweighed that of the tube. First of all, there were seven of us...so we got two rafts and tied them together (much easier than linking seven tubes). Second, there was the fact that the rafts had bottoms, which was great because the water was still pretty freezing and there were undoubtedly strange creatures lurking in the not so clear water that I did not wish to mingle with. Third, having the bottoms in the raft allowed us to store our super cool water guns that we used against each other and to attack questionable pirate-like people who wanted to have a water fight (and by people I mean little kids with super soakers because, yes, my friends and I are clearly 5 year olds at heart...and don’t worry the children won the battle). And finally, the oars allowed us to navigate the river, which gave (some of) us a good upper body workout. AND we were able to row ourselves over to the famous river Hot Dog Man who let us refuel and counteract any productiveness that the rowing may have accomplished (but hey, its all about the experience and the food was part of it!).

So three hours and several hot dogs later we made it to our destination. All in all it was an awesome day and quite the adventure! Get a group of friends together and get to your nearest river! If nothing else you will have an exciting story to tell!

-Ashley Johncola