Another good night’s sleep! Woke up to birds chirping and the sun shining. What a beautiful day! Today we were off to Bryson, NC and the Nantahala River for a day of adventure! We left the cabin around 9:45 and drove along the Great Smoky Mountain Expressway to Bryson. We arrived around 10:45 to The Paddle Inn Rafting Co. parking lot. For $25 each we got ourselves an 8-mile trek down the river with an experienced guide named Dustin. Well, he had been there a week, so compared to us, he was experienced!! We were fitted with life jackets, handed a paddle and loaded onto a bus for a short trip down the road to the drop off location. Once there our boat (#703) was unloaded we took it down to the river’s edge. I can just imagine what our guide was thinking. . . “what did I do to deserve this?? Why do I get stuck with 6 girls???” He was a good sport though and we had a fabulous time!! The river was 55 degrees so it was pretty invigorating when we got splashed. The sun was out though and the temp was in the high 80s. Claudia and I sat in the front, Carlie and McKenzie in the back, with Kacey and Becca in the center. Our trip started out almost immediately with a class III rapid so I got soaked right off the bat! After that it was mostly class I rapids with a few rocks to paddle around and sometimes over! Kacey and Becca got out of the boat a couple times just for the fun of it. The second time Becca went in the guide left here out there for about 3-4 seconds instead of pulling her right in. Her face was classic!! Wish I had been able to bring the camera! Right at the end we ended up getting beached TWICE!! Each time was only for a minute or so but it was, shall I say, fun?? I thought the first time we might actually tip because we were all to one side and the guide was bouncing up and down on the other. I thought it was possible that when we finally unbeached we’d flip right on over, but we didn’t. For large stretches the river was only a foot or two deep although the parts where the girls went over the sides was deeper, maybe 5 or 6 feet. On a scale of one to ten the girls gave it an eleven! We bought some photos from the trip that I will add to the blog if I can.
For lunch we ate at a pizza joint right on the river where we watched dozens of rafts, kayaks and canoes go by while we watched from our picnic table. Amazing!
We took the long road back looking for a place called Soco Gap which I had heard had very nice views. The GPS lead us to somewhere close but not quite there. On the way we stopped to explore Soco Falls and ended up taking the Blue Ridge Parkway back home. So amazingly pretty.
The girls played in the yard for a bit while Claudia made us dinner. Kenzie was tuckered out and stayed in to hang with me. Her fever is down pretty much but she has started to cough. Hopefully she will not keep us all up all night.
1 comments:
Look at the picture of the rapids. Who in their right mind would give the sharp stick to McKenzie. She would poke you just to see you jump.
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