Inner Tubing Fun

What’s the best way to beat the heat in New England (besides air conditioning)? Getting wet, of course. There are countless ways to get wet up here, but decided to try something new and rent inner tubes and ride them down the river. I’d heard about river inner tubing, but didn’t really know what it entailed. There used to be vendors from the S. Royalton area that were always promoting it, and we finally decided to give it a try.

Our timing was good, actually. We were going for it on Sunday. I contacted Tweed River Tubing on Saturday, and the guy said the river was flowing pretty fast, too much so for kids. He said it takes about 2.5 hours to do the ride, but they were clocking in at 1 hour, so they did not recommend it for young kids. In fact, the day before, they weren’t even letting people on the river, it was so fast. The guy mentioned that it was dropping, and that buy Sunday it should be fine. I appreciated his honesty.

We headed out Sunday after lunch and were ready for some white water fun. The river in question is the White River, and you grab a tube just outside of Bethel. I was a little cautious with N, but it was actually pretty safe, and man was it fun. We had a blast, and the kids were raving about it, as were we. The water was flowing nicely enough to make it fun, but not so much to make it scary. You get tube, a paddle, and life vest, and jump in. The water was cold, but it was hot outside, so we weren’t complaining. It had actually cooled off because it was cloudy, but it was still warm.

The ride was a blast! There are sections of rocks that give you a little white water experience, and there are channels and chutes that you jet through. Lots of joyful screaming. You can control your direction and speed with the paddle, but for the most part, you just go with the flow. On one dramatic note, at one point on the river, a family had brought along their 3-year old (for real?) and they hit some rocks, flipping the child’s tube over. Apparently nobody really knew how to swim, so they rescued the child, but there was so trauma and maybe some injury. I can’t say for sure, but there was this serious rescue operation. A bit of overkill, if you ask me, and the river is strong, but not that deep. I was wondering why they couldn’t just hold the child and walk to the shore. Instead, it seemed like the brought in the Marines.

It made for some drama, but didn’t diminish the fun. It was a great way to cool off. Someone was saying that it was the best weekend because heavy rains made the river flow, but not dangerously. As summer progresses, unless they get ample rainfall, the river tends to dry up to a trickle, so our timing was good. I love when that happens.

Afterward, we had supper in Bethel at some shack on the side of the road. Greasy fried foods, the kind we love to hate. I just wanted to mention that our experience with Tweed River was awesome, I give them thumbs up and recommend going with them if you want to river tube.

I know we’ll go back to them, and can’t wait until the next time. Thanks for reading, and thanks to DiscoverDominica for the pic.