Green River,7:45am:

We don’t meet our rafting guides until 10:30am, so it’s a lazy morning at the Super 8 Green River. Clark stayed up late updating the blog and prepping for our put-in tomorrow, so I got up “early” to deal with a potential wrinkle we might face in Moab (wrinkle has been ironed out, btw).

I head downstairs to the lobby so as not to disturb Clark. I set my trip notebook down on the reception desk. Someone calls my name. I spin around to see Mr. and Mrs. Shah, Megha’s parents, shaking my hand and re-introducing themselves. Between the fog of sleep and the incongruity of seeing Westminster parents at the Green River Super 8, we were well into greetings before I realized what was happening (apparently I’m very cordial when semi-conscious).

They were on their way to Aspen, flying into Grand Junction. Their plane was diverted to Salt Lake (I believe–again, I was on a processing delay as they were telling the story). They drove late into the night, got as far as Green River, and had to stop.

They got up in the morning, joined the Super 8 crowd for breakfast and found me. However, they departed before Megha came down, so as not to embarrass her–that instinct does not compute for a middle school teacher.

We are off in about a half hour. We will be back in touch in Moab in six days!