It doesn’t matter how old your children are, as a Mother you always worry about their safety, especially when it is your daughter rafting down the Colorado River Rapids on a raft together with husband and my grandchildren. A triple worry!

Prior to going overseas to the United States for a month, my eldest daughter Corinne painstakingly advised me that whilst they would be in the Grand Canyon there wouldn’t be any form of communication, mainly during the time when they did the organised four-day rafting and camping trip. That included no phones, Internet, WiFi, nothing!

Knowing that their trip was going to be an organised professional rafting trip made me feel somewhat comfortable at the time of her detailing their entire month in the United States, where they would be visiting Los Angles, Las Vegas, Utah, Yosemite, San Francisco and Hawaii.

Obviously, one of the most spectacular tourist adventures would definitely be the rafting trip down the Colorado River and camping along the river edge. This could be something that my grandsons would thoroughly enjoy and remember for a long time. Probably not the most comfortable trip though for my daughter.

The trip appeared to be one of life’s best adventures until you remember that your daughter is not the strongest swimmer!

Before they left to go overseas Corinne included me into her Tripit app details and said she would upload photos onto Instagram along the way.

This way I could see where they were and as both Corinne an Nigel her husband are both keen photographers, Nigel being the professional photographer, I knew that the photos would be uploaded often onto Instagram, which they were! Except of course when they were rafting down the Colorado River.

Having to be patient during those painful four days without any form of communication, until I heard from them via whatever type of communications they could muster was awful. My thoughts went from guess they are having a great time to hoping nothing has gone wrong!

Trying to get some solace I turned to my friends on Facebook saying how anxiousness was getting to me when one of my friends made a comment “haven’t you heard about deliverance country and the odd things happen there”.

Great, that was all I needed to read it trigger off my imagination. Were they attacked by a big brown bear? Did anyone fall out of the raft? Then the mind wondered to rattlesnakes, tarantula spiders coming into their tents.

To say the four days dragged on is an understatement. I just wanted to see some photos appear on Instagram, as then I would know everything was ok.

Then on the fifth day, I experienced that everything was all right as the most beautiful photos started appearing on Instagram, I looked and looked over them imagining what a fantastic time they must have all had, exhausting for sure, but a real adventure.

Being able to experience this type of adventure is something that a lot of us would wish for in our own lives, but rarely get the opportunity to experience.

As a mother and of course a grandmother you never stop worrying about the safety aspects of such an adventure. Thank goodness everything went to plan and I can stop with the anxiousness at least until their next adventure.