Tubing Provo River

Living in Provo for the last 6 years, this is an activity that I have done almost every summer. Along with everyone else in Provo. We went down the river today and it seemed to be the thing to do. I have never seen it so crowded, and I have never seen the cops there before handing out tickets left and right to people who were either not wearing life jackets or to people that were not wearing the correct life jackets. I guess a girl died going down the river the other day... so they are being pretty strict now. It was a good day to go, I am pretty sure it was like 100 degrees today. So you think it would be refreshing, but it was so cold. My body was pretty much numb for the hour or so that it took to float down to the park where we had parked the car.
We were going to go with our ward, but for some reason I thought or ward was signed up to go in the afternoon, but it was so booked that day that they signed up for the morning (I can't even imagine how cold that was) so Brent and I missed it. My friend Tessa and her husband Adam had told me the day before that they wanted to go tubing down the river that day... so we just went with them, so it worked out. Since we did not go with the ward, therefore did not go with the rafting company, we had to buy something to float down in. We have club 400, but we didn't think that it could handle the rapids, rocks and bushes of the Provo river... so we went to a tire shop and got tubes. We decided to name them club 100 and club 200. We then went to BYU and rented some life jackets and we were good to go.
Sadly Tessa and Adam were told that they did not have the correct life jackets... and then on top of that, it was so hot that Tessa's tube popped! Sad day. Adam and Tessa tried dodging security and sharing a tube.... but that only lasted them so long and then they realized that Brent's keys were in their car and Brent's car was what was supposed to get us back up to their car. Poor planning. So we ended up seeing them at the end. I felt pretty bad. Hopefully they get to go again.
Last year Brent and I totally fell out of our kayak into the freezing cold water after going under the bridge that we were told to get out and go around because of the current. This year we walked around, so I thought we were going to avoid being submerged in the freezing water and any other injuries. WRONG! The current was taking us straight into a HUGE branch sticking out into the river. I tried to push off it, but that was the wrong move. The current was so strong that me pushing off the branch just tossed me off my tube into the freezing cold water and the branch smacked my head and I have a gash in my hand that was still bleeding when I got home an hour later. Brent ended up falling in and getting a bit scratched up. I guess why tube down Provo River if you are not going to come home with a battle wound?
Anyway... that was our adventure today. Pretty fun, but I am so tired. It really takes it out of you.