The days fell into a routine: We arose in the morning to hot breakfast and coffee. Camp gear and personal effects are packed away in watertight containers, then loaded onto the boats. We rafted until lunch; long stretches of placid current turning into raging whitewater in the blink of an eye. Sometimes we went on a mid-morning hike into a well-travelled, yet surprisingly pristine canyon, sometimes we just kept going, hitting rapid after rapid. Pulling into a campsite, we unloaded everything in organized trains, tossing bags and boxes from person to person. Then we got to do it all over again the next day.

Our group of 7 comprised the largest cohesive contingent of people; everyone else was the typical mix of guy with dad, guys without spouses, spouses with spouses, older folk, etc. No kids, though. Of the 20-odd people in camp, it seemed that you ran into every cliche in the book. Like a reel-life movie, it seemed like everyone had a story to tell and a reason for being there. There were recent widowers with heartbreaking stories, guys furiously male-bonding in the great outdoors, older couples glimpsing the Grand Canyon with bright eyes and clasped hands, incomplete nuclear families with the parent desparately spending some quality time with his adult children, young adventure hounds, and of course, there was Jim.

My old college friend Jim was the quintessential city slicker, who (unbeknownst to me) had never camped out before in his life. Near the beginning of the trip, he spent many hours just sitting quietly by himself, experiencing what could be described as sensory deprivation - no radio, no TV, no ambient traffic noise. Instead he physically experienced, perhaps for the first time, nothingness. Nothing but cool canyon breezes and the white noise of the Colorado washing over him, without any recourse but to sit there and just feel it. In any case, his steady Eeyore commentary (Randy, this sucks) was entertaining, to say the least. Especially when a howling sandstorm sent fine grit everywhere (and I do mean everywhere) the first night, and most especially after it started raining the second night (Randy, it's raining).

Through a series of mistakes on my part, however, we never really had a chance to talk. Oh, we were together for a large part of the trip, but we were never together during the quiet reflective moments where you can really talk. For some strange reason, we never rode in the same raft, and while I was busy after dinner scrounging up beer or cigars, he was nowhere to be found. But I think, in the end, he really enjoyed himself. Or at least that's what he told me.