Part 1
In the dark, inside a tent barely tall enough to sit up in, something brushes Jeanne Robertson’s neck. Her husband, whom she calls Left Brain, seems to be kissing her. Then she reaches out—and discovers that the romantic stranger in their sleeping bag is a Grand Canyon lizard. The tent erupts. The couple lurches around inside it like a creature from a monster movie, while nearby campers wake, switch on flashlights, and gather to see what on earth is happening.
That is the fifth-night surprise at the heart of Robertson’s rafting story, but it is hardly the first thing to go wrong. She and Left Brain agreed to spend eight days on the Colorado River after a friend promised motorized rafts, leisurely walks, private tents, and bathing in cool, clear water. The Grand Canyon had other plans. In this performance, every promise becomes a setup, every hardship adds another comic beat, and one small lizard gets to play the final monster.
This is a story told with the shape and timing of a great movie scene: a quiet beginning, a steadily tightening trap, a cast of memorable characters, and a late-night creature reveal that sends the whole campsite into the frame. The laughs are big, but the craft is just as satisfying. Robertson doesn’t merely list the trip’s disasters. She makes us travel through them, one increasingly questionable decision at a time.
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A Bad Boat Ride Becomes the Opening Scene
Before the Grand Canyon, there was the Nantahala River—and the memory of Left Brain being knocked out of a raft. Robertson sketches the earlier trip in a few strokes: the group paddling through swirling water, a road high above them, and a woman pointing out a wild man running down the highway with a paddle held over his head. The wild man is Left Brain, thrown from the boat and now sprinting along the riverbank to catch up.
It is a compact little action sequence. We see the raft moving downriver. We look up with the passengers. Then the reveal lands: the runner isn’t some stranger in distress. He is the person who was supposed to be sitting safely behind them. The absurdity works because Robertson lets the audience connect the clues at the same time her fellow rafters do. No big explanation needed. Just one paddle, one embankment, and one very determined husband.
That mishap also plants the story’s central obstacle. When Al Walker calls years later with an invitation to raft the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon, Robertson is ready to say yes. Left Brain is ready to say no. He has already been separated from a raft once; in his memory, this is not the opening chapter of an adventure. It is evidence.
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Robertson gives their opposing instincts a comic shorthand. She is the one selling the trip. He is the one checking the fine print—and remembering the last time fine print failed to save him. Their back-and-forth turns a simple yes-or-no decision into a miniature courtroom drama, with the website serving as the prosecution’s most suspicious witness.
The Website Promises a Softer Adventure
First, she explains, they will not even have to paddle. They’ll be passengers on 35-foot motorized rafts, with guides doing the work. They can relax, read, catch up on correspondence, or dangle a foot in the water. Left Brain pauses, considers the offer, and objects that he does not want to float along for eight hours a day over eight days.
No problem, says Robertson’s imagined brochure. Several times a day, there will be leisurely strolls through the Grand Canyon. Left Brain raises his age: he will be 69 when the trip happens. She counters that the site advises against going after 70, so they should hurry. It is a perfect couple’s exchange because both sides are technically reasoning—and neither side is addressing the same fear.
The negotiations keep moving. He does not want to sleep on the ground. The website says cots and little private white tents. He asks about bathing. Clear, cool water, according to the description. A bathroom? Adequate facilities, surely, because people do this trip all the time. Each answer sounds reassuring until experience gets close enough to inspect it.
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Then comes the clincher: no cell phones, no computers, no contact with the outside world—and the chance to meet new, interesting people. Robertson recruits another couple with a variation on the same promise. Tom, who does not want to go anywhere without a golf course, agrees because his wife wants the trip. Two years away is just far enough for people to agree to things they might reconsider next Tuesday.
That two-year gap matters. It gives the decision the soft, dreamlike safety of something far off. The raft is not here yet. The campsites are not here yet. The website can be trusted for now. Robertson understands the comedy of anticipation: a person can be persuaded to face almost anything if the dangerous part belongs to a future version of them.
The Canyon Revises the Brochure
The first warning arrives before the river. A four-hour coach ride to the put-in becomes a ten-hour odyssey, with the group stranded and cut off from phone contact. Meanwhile, members of the Baptist church choir begin singing “Shall We Gather at the River.” The joke is not that they sing badly; Robertson describes them as singing at the same time rather than together. The joke is that the soundtrack has arrived before the river, while the bus has not arrived anywhere.
