Great post, Riverman! One of the funniest since the days of Grateful Ed.

John Q Adams wrote:

But seriously, now. The jerk, sorry, correspondent from the RC of A, has
a grant that the grantor hopes will produce new amusement park rides.

What's wrong with that? I respect people who can get grants.

The bottom line on the "thrill" thing is that everybody has a different
thrill threshold. I still get a kick out of pointing my boat into mere
class 2-3 waves, but maybe it's more aesthetic than danger-oriented.
On the other hand, an amusement-park log ride seems kind of tame, and
bumper-boat whitewater rides (e.g. Raging Whitewater at Great America)
make me worried about equipment failure, detracting from thrills.

David Elliott said it well:
"As river stories age, the boats get smaller and the water gets higher."

Stories are the best way to increase vicarious thrills. And having
boated flood-stage rivers before, in the future I'll try to to keep my
high-water thrills vicarious. And only vicarious.