Celebrities Are People Too: The Armstrongs Wear Orange America’s Cup Lifejackets!
Posted July 21, 2007 by Robyn Suddeth
Anyone ever read those horrible celebrity gossip magazines and see the pages where they try and make people feel just a little less average by taking pictures of really cool famous people doing everyday things, like drinking a Starbucks?
Well I figure those celebrity gossip magazines must be doing SOMETHING right, because even I can be found flipping through one every once in a while, as ashamed as I am to admit that. So, welcome to the All Outdoors version of Celebrities Are People Too: The Armstrongs Are People Too! Yes, they may own, run, AND guide for one of the greatest rafting companies in all the land, but they are actually regular old folks just like you and me. Exhibit A is pictured above: Laura Armstrong guiding a raft through Clavey Falls on the Tuolumne River… in a classic, bright orange jacket designed by 
America’s Cup! (Notice how similar her look is to everyone else’s in the boat).
Exhibit B: Scott A’s similar jacket choice pictured on the right here, taken on the Goodwin Canyon section of the Stanislaus River. And what’s more: Scott actually wears the purple helmet too!!
In a little more seriousness, we hear the question all the time: “Why do you guys (guides) get to wear those cool-looking lifejackets while we (guests) are stuck in these bulky, dorky-looking orange things?” Well, as shown above, not ALL of us guides are in those sleek, swanky-looking jackets. All-Outdoors’ owners all sport the same exact personal flotation devices we give our guests (and helmets), proving a strong belief in and loyalty to the gear we use! And they 
have good reason for it (aside from Scott’s sometimes strange fashion sense)… The America’s Cup personal flotation devices actually have about 8 pounds more flotation than the average jacket you see most of us guides wearing out there. That translates to sitting quite a bit higher in the water in the case of a swim.
Go figure. Apparently looks matter to the rest of us river guides a little more than we like to admit!