by Shannon Rooney

I had finally decided the only way to unplug my son from the virtual world of computers was to bring him home to Trinity County for several days.

It was time to take a breather from Supermario. Time to go through withdrawal from Starcraft and other computer games. Time to take a significant rest from Nintendo 64.

And I knew just the thing to plug Austin back into the real world: a raft trip on the Trinity River. There's nothing like that exhilaration to make you feel truly alive again.

Not everybody agreed with me, however. When I told friends last Friday morning about our plan to raft the river later that day, some of them said, "Are you crazy? Eleven people have been killed while rafting on rivers in the past three weeks."

I told these people they should consider a workshop on positive visualization.

Okay, so I like to take a risk now and then. The truth is, the trips offered by Trinity River Rafting are safer than a lot of activities we don't think twice about. You probably run a greater risk of catastrophe while driving a car down Buckhorn Mountain to Redding.

Trinity River Rafting owner David Steinhauser outfits you in wetsuits (protection against that 48 degree water), helmets, and top-notch life-jackets. All you have to provide is the super-block sunscreen--and we needed plenty of that.

The best part about our trip, however was that David was the guide. (Would-be rafters should note that the majority of rafting fatalities on swollen California rivers occurred on non-guided trips.) You don't really have to think about how to go around this rapid or how to avoid that rock because David does all that thinking for you. He tells you when to paddle forward, when to paddle backward and when to paddle so that the raft will turn. Very simple.

He's a Zen presence in the back of the raft, calmly calling out, "Paddle forward now" in his perfectly level voice. From the first five minutes of the first time I rafted with David, I knew I was in good hands.

Not only is David the consumate guide, but the run he took us on from Big Flat to Del Loma is one of the mellowest parts of the river, even with the 4,500 cubic feet per second that was being released from Trinity Lake that day. Several class II and a couple of class III rapids get your heart going and drench you with water, but then you have long stretches where you can kick back, watch the osprey and blue heron, and simply revel in the sparkling beauty of the river canyon. David punctuates the journey with tales from Trinity County's mining days, pointing out historic sites along the river.

While my son ended up loving the raft trip, he did resist a little before we put in at Big Flat. But as soon as he got in, took his place in the middle of the raft, and dipped his yellow paddle in the water, he was transfixed. Finally, something non-digital had captured his attention.

He laughed delightedly when we hit the first set of class III rapids, where cold sprays of water leaped in. As the raft rocked over the waves, he ecstatically dug with his paddle. I felt smug. I had introduced him to a form of entertainment that could rival Nintendo, Inc.

After the chips 'n' salsa snack break halfway down the nine-mile course, we switched places with the people who were in the front of the raft. Austin liked this new perspective. We saw the rapids with an immediacy that hadn't been so evident when we were in the middle. And when the raft splashed into new sets of rapids--we got wet. Not just a little wet, but really wet.

By the time we pulled in at Del Loma, Austin was asking me about other runs on the river--runs I've been on in the past. "I want to go through Hell's Hole next time," he told me confidently. "Let's do the intermediate run."

For a kid who hadn't wanted to go, he had come a long way: he was already planning our next river trip.

And he hadn't even mentioned computers.