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A 60 year old man recently fell out of the raft with a few others and evidently drown.  He did not come up. How dangerous is White Water Rafting.  Well, it all depends.  Class 1, and 2 rapids are pretty safe, Class 3 is a little more dangerous and Class 4 and 5 can be dangerous if you are careless or do not know what to do when you fall out of the raft.  I don't know what instruction the raft company on the Kern  River gives it's rafters but I know what instructions we were given and practiced when we used to go white Water Rafting. When I was younger   me and my bride along with two other couples who were friends used to go white water rafting on the middle fork of the American River in northern California every summer.  We went for about 6 years and had a great time every year.  We always took the day run in Class 3 and class 4 rapids.  We were always instructed before the rafting and practiced falling out of the boat in class 1 and class 2 rapids.  The instructions included the following:

1. Keep your legs together and your hands over your face.

2. try to hit the water flat, not head or feet first.

3. The Life vest will hold your head up, immediately orientate yourself on your back with your feet at water level and down stream. Work to stay in that position

4. Use your feet and arms to guide you around rocks or other obstacles

5.When you reach an area that is quiet enough and has a spot where you can get out of the water work yourself toward that spot.

Only experienced rafters should attempt Class 5 rapids.

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I have the dubious honor of baby siting my Grand Daughters dog for four days while the family is on a Mexican Cruise.  The dog is a pure bred something or other.  She is loving, cute, cuddly, and dumb as a rock.

I have had numerous dogs during my relatively long life, both prue bred and mongrels.  It has been my experience that the mongrels were more hardy and smarter than the prue breds.  The one exception was a Jack Russel Terrier.  He was by far the smartest dog I have ever had.  But then the Jack Russel is not really a prue bred.  They were bred in England over a lengthly period of time to be a hunting dog.  The only problem I had with him was he had a habit of bouncing off the walls.  High energy, hard to maintain and had to be kept away from other dogs.  though small, he would take on a dog twice his size as one did a while ago.  The news reported that a Pit Bull had attack two children.  Their Jack Russel jumped in and engaged the pit bull until help came to subdue the animal.  Unfortunately the Jack Russel did not survive but by-standers said he gave it everything he had to protect the kids.

If my observations transfer to human types, it should speak well for us folks in the U.S.A.  After all about 80 % of us are mongrels.

Only problem would be controlling the radio waves.

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