Last modified: Sunday, September 14, 2008 5:27 PM EDT No generation gap Tony Sousa Sr., 81, and his grandson Nick went whitewater rafting on the Penobscot River in Maine, one of their extreme activities that they did together with Nick’s father, Tony Sousa Jr. (Submitted photo) Extreme success BY STEPHEN PETERSON SUN CHRONICLE STAFF The Sousa family completed most of its extreme sports excursion in Maine, with an eye on finishing off the remaining challenge in the coming weeks. Three generations of the family, including 81-year-old Tony Sousa Sr. of Attleboro, skydived at Baxter State Park and went whitewater rafting on the Penobscot River. However, they had to pass for the day on climbing the largest mountain in Maine. "It was awesome," Tony Sousa Jr. of Plainville, and a former Attleboro and Seekonk resident, said of the trip his son Nick also went on. "It was just a lot of fun." None had skydived before. "Both of us were on the ground watching him land," Sousa said of he and his son observing the senior member of the party, who "thought it was awesome. He had no trepidation whatsoever about jumping. None of us did." The river's rapids posed even more of an obstacle. "It was unbelievable," Sousa said. "I almost went out once, and my son almost went out once. We were able to stay in" the raft that held eight people and a guide. The two elder Sousas had rafted before, but not the youngest. "We saw an eagle just sitting in a tree, looking larger than life, just kind of minding his own business," Sousa said. "My son got to see the night sky the way it is supposed to be seen, with no light pollution. The Milky Way stretched miles on end. We did get to see a small meteor." But there remains some unfinished business. "The only thing we couldn't do was hike Mount Katahdin because of time constraints. We could have done it in one day, but the summit was locked in clouds and rain. It would have been a dangerous hike," Sousa said. "We will hike it some other day." A hiker, Sousa says he always wanted to climb the mountain in Baxter State Park. Tony Sousa Sr., a Norton native who served in the Army during the Korean War, is quite active for his age, having recently rode a giant rollercoaster in Las Vegas. The extreme trip was initially planned for Tony Jr.'s son's belated 20th birthday. Nick, who lives in Seekonk, is a junior at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth, and came up with the skydiving part of the trip. "We will be back up again, hopefully this fall," Sousa said, noting he has a vacation in early October when the foliage should be peaking. And Sousa adds that his son wants to bungee jump as well as scale the mountain. STEPHEN PETERSON can be reached at 508-236-0377 or at speterson@thesunchronicle.com.