How Cowgirls Get Rid Of The Blues
by Debbie Jacobs
I first met Bev on a whitewater rafting trip. In and of itself, there’s nothing extraordinary about that. But in the months preceeding our adventure I heard from Bev regularly. She called to confirm that she didn’t ‘have’ to get in a raft.
One of the wonderful aspects of Oregon’s Rogue River is that along with great whitewater and glorious scenic floats through forestlands and narrow canyons, there’s a trail that parallels it. So, in theory, someone on a raft trip could get out and walk every foot of the river. But why would anyone want to I wondered? Bev wanted to because she was afraid of water, or more specifically, afraid of deep and fast moving water. For a non-swimmer, terrified by the thought of being tossed into churning whitewater, a raft trip seemed an odd choice. But since the description of the trip called it a ‘hike & raft’ trip Bev planned on taking advantage of the ‘hike’ half.
I’ve developed a healthy respect for whitewater over the years so I could not discredit Bev’s concerns. I had chosen this river for its beauty and for being an appropriate river for beginning paddlers. As a river guide I appreciate the power that rivers have to both exhilarate and calm us and I wanted the women joining me to experience that. My faith that that would happen for Bev was waning with each call.
But then I hadn’t met Bev before. Unafraid to voice her fears, she’s also unafraid to confront them. Never having ridden a horse did not deter her from signing on to be part of a cattle drive in Montana. It was a dream of hers and the future all too quickly becomes the past, so dreams need to be acted on. Bev fell in love with the west (and the presence of real-live cowboys may have added to the allure) and after two years of deliberating, scheming, doubting and planning, put her New England home on the market, rented a moving van and headed off to Montana. She finally retired and lives there now on her own piece of the prairie along with a rescued one-eyed horse and her cats, which are glad the drive out west is over.
On the Oregon raft trip Bev didn’t get out of the raft once. She progressed from sitting in the gear boat and hanging on, to being right up front in the raft which a team of six paddled through the rapids.
It didn’t surprise me when after her first cross-country ski trip, with too many butt bruising falls, Bev informed me that she had had her fill of skiing. It also didn’t surprise me when, a month later, she called to ask what length skis she should buy. After all, it snows in Montana in the winter and even cowgirls need to stretch their legs a bit.