The inside of the raft was like inflated tubes you sat on and were supposed to 'brace yourself' in the rapids by putting your feet under the round tube in front of you. I did that but when the raft buckled it would not have mattered if I was belted in I really don't think. I would have taken a beating. The cooler on the other hand, had a metal cage made for it which fit over two of the tubes and was strapped in. The only place safe for me was guarding the beer and lunch. HA!

		guidogodoy wrote:
		TWENTY feet, eh? (looks at the distance with admiration). Very nice! I can't help but marvel at the fact that the cooler is bolted down but the people are not! Ya gotta know your priorities!      spapad wrote: That bridge you see there is awesome! They base jump and bungee jump off it each year. The river flowing underneath it has quality rapids. I once went rafting with my mother and her coworkers, and was the lightest person in the boat. When we hit rapids and the raft bent, I was ejected from the thing like a cannonball; landing about 20 feet away from the boat. I spent the rest of the trip sitting on the cooler which was belted into the raft and I could hold on to it and not get thrown out. So, I've been white water rafting but I only spent about 20 minutes with an oar in my hands. LOL I drifted down a class 1 rapid in my life jacket and thought I was going to die. The water just churns you back down in a dip and wont let you up. That kind of sucked too. Obviously I never went rafting again.      guidogodoy wrote: You know, before I started reading it here, I had NEVER heard of West Virginia as being full of dumb rednecks. Currently, I am surrounded by them but I had honestly never heard such a thing when I lived in the north. Then again, maybe I had been listening to John Denver (RIP) too much.      spapad wrote: With the exception of Georgia and Mississippi..................I think the rest of the Southern states are not viewed as being as stupid as West Virgina.  West Virginia is not even a southern state, so they don't even get to be "good ol' boys".       metal12 wrote: How about Georgia, Alabama, Arkansas. Mississippi, Louisiana, Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, Sorry if I missed anyplace else.      spapad wrote: I would say most people in WV wear shoes, and at least 85% of them under the age of 60 can read and write. I live just a couple miles from the WV border and also work there. I can honestly say I hate the way the media portrays WV. Anyone out of the area deliberately seeks out the most uneducated idiotic person they can find to interview. That's not truly representative of the large majority of the population but everyone in the US thinks that all West Virginians are inbred, backward, gun toating, morons. Makes me so happy I live in Virgnia.      Budred wrote: Well, ma' dropped me Nebraska, moved me to West Virginia(no I'm not a freakin' hillbilly), then raised me in Ohio.(so people would quit calling me a freakin' hillbilly) I'm kidding of course about the hillbilly thing but West Virginia has such a reputation in other parts of the country. True story: When my mother moved to Nebraska(to drop me)(lol) she was in a store and the clerk noticed an accent so she asked  where she was from and my mother says "West Virginia." The clerk stepped around the counter and looked at her feet then stepped back around the counter. So, my mother was like "what's that all about?" and the clerk said "I heard people in West Virginia don't wear shoes."