WHAT'S BEEN GOING ON....

Before I tell you about DH's and my camping/whitewater trip this past weekend I have to mention something that's related to a previous post. A couple post ago I wrote about seeing a certain young woman dressed a certain inappropriate, to say the least, way. Well, a couple days after that I was in Target with my kids and guess who walks the opposite way down the aisle wearing the exact same outfit?? I couldn't believe it. If she recognized me she probably thought I was crazy because I just stared at her in disbelief. I guess God really wants me to pray for her.


And now onto the trip. DH and I drove about 2 hours north to Ocoee, TN, to camp and raft with some people from our church. We camped Friday night and then got ready to raft on Saturday. I had never done any whitewater rafting but my husband had and was very excited even though he's been suffering with whooping cough for the past 2 1/2 months. Now I'll ride almost any roller coaster out there but I was nervous about this whitewater experience. I think it has something to do with the fact that Hollywood has never made a movie about dying while riding a roller coaster but we own the movie River Wild and I could vividly recall the fantastic scenes where their raft would be plummeting over a 20 foot drop. Also, there are no seatbelts or shoulder harnesses on rafts as there are on roller coasters. Anyway, we get our gear and then sit as one of the guides explains where to sit and how to rescue your buddy if he/she gets thrown out of the boat. Two things were going against me here. One, I didn't sleep very well in the tent the night before so I was very tired and a little giddy. Two, this guy was very funny but he also had two nicknames sown onto his vest which were a little scary -- Psycho and terminally insane. I was really hoping we didn't get that guide. So we load up the buses with ourselves and about six rafts on top and head out for the 30 minute drive up to the top of the run. We are doing both sections of the river today, the Olympic section and the middle section. The Olympic section was making me nervous just thinking about it. Back in the '96 Olympics the top section of the river was redesigned to make it harder for the Olympic athletes. The first rapid we were to encounter would be a class V. Since they don't let amateurs on class VI and above, this was going to be the hardest rapid of the day and we were going to hit it first!! Once we unload we get assigned a guide. Ours is not Psycho but Chris, a young guy who looks competent and fun. We practice rowing a couple times and are instructed on how to sit and how to anchor our feet into the raft. This is supposed to keep us from falling out. Then off we launch. I'm not going to go into detail about every rapid because I just can't remember all of them. The Olympic section was a blast!! Sooner rather than later, we found out that we had one of the best guides. He pushed us really hard but we had the most fun of any boat out there. We saw a couple people fall out of other boats but no one fell out of our boat and no one got hurt. We spent a total of six hours on the river and we were absolutely dead at the end of our trip. One of many highlights was when our picture was taken while we were going through one of the rapids. Our guide had been down the river over 1,000 times so he knew exactly when the picture was to be taken. At just the right moment he leaps up in the air and proceeds to land on the guy in front of him. No one was expecting that and it was so funny. Our friend wasn't hurt by the way. When we got back to the camp we had a chance to look at all the pictures that were taken of our group. The one with Chris flying in the air was spectacular. I hope to scan it into my blog if I can ever figure that skill out. We are eagerly looking forward to next year's trip even though we were exhausted and sore the next day and all that exertion didn't bode well for my husband's recovery. If you ever have a chance to do this, go for it, especially on the Ocoee River with Highcountry Outfitters and Chris as your guide!!

Blessings.