Here at All Reasons Moving our guys work together on a daily basis and as you know moving is hard work. I remember in the 1970s and 80’s companies did a lot of Team Building and Rope Climbing exercises. How many of you remember those? Not as much of that going on anymore, but we know how important it is for employees to bond and work together. A couple of weeks ago we brought back the 80’s with a Team Building Raft Trip down the Middle Fork of the American River.
Not everyone was able to attend due to personal reasons but for those of us that we’re able to go the trip started out with a drive to Roseville. After checking into the hotel, a few of the guys got on their suits and swam in the pool for a while. Later on we all went to dinner at Outback Steakhouse.
The evening carried over to a local Pub where everyone shot pool and played shuffleboard into the night. It is always good for employees to spend time away from work just hanging out having some laughs, and there was lots of laughing. We took time to remember one of our favorite employees Sai Wailutu, who passed away in 2004, when he was in a car accident while visiting his home in Figi.
6AM comes mighty early when you’ve been up late. But everyone managed to get up and we were off to the river.
Once arriving at our check-in place we were fitted with helmets and life jackets.
We then took a 45 minute windy, bumpy, dusty bus ride with a fella that obviously had driven this road many times. Barreling up the road to our launch site windows open and dust flying we had to pull over for a couple of people that were car/bus sick. Our driver (who by the way looked like Willie Nelson) proceeded to floor it the rest of the way up the windy road not easing up. Wish we had a picture of the driver and the bus.
Once at the launch site we received some training on paddling and working as a team. Some of us have been down the river before, but for many, this was their first time. Just being issued helmets freaked out a few of the guys. It didn’t help we found out later that for a couple of weeks before the trip one of the managers kept saying things like “5 presumed dead on the river this week”… just added to the excitement.
As for the River itself, it was fun and being a Class IV river, it was challenging. Everyone had to work together to get down that river. In the pictures below see if you can spot our guide on the outside of the boat! Yes, he fell out on one of the harder runs, we rode Tunnel Shoot down by ourselves and lived to talk about it!