Well, we got off to a rocky start on this year's rafting adventure. First, Princess B couldn't come because she was already in school that week. Crazy. School starts so much earlier now than when I was a kid.
Then, we had a bit of car trouble on Thursday morning when we left. Lucky for us, it happened before we got too far. We had borrowed Bubbles's grandma's truck for the trip, initially. I loaded up the truck on
Wednesday. Thursday morning, I loaded the last few items in the bed of the truck and we rolled out for WV. We got as far as the bridge over the turnpike on I75 when trouble reared its ugly head. The front u-joint on the driveshaft
started to disintegrate and it sounded like we were going over rumple-strips in the road even though we were in the center lane. It took us an extra hour to nurse the truck back to grandma's house because I took it really slowly.
Once there, grandma had the same neighbor who had replaced the u-joints a few months earlier come over and take a look. He said it wouldn't be an easy fix. So, grandma drove me over to my house where I put the cargo box on
top of the tC. Then, we returned to grandma's and transferred everything from the truck to the car. Turns out we had more room in the car with the cargo box than we had in the truck. Go figure. Probably got better mileage, too.
This year, we knew right where we were going and we arrived without incident. We were set up and checked in much earlier than last year. Instead of buying dinner at the buffet, we opted to run into town and pick up some Subway.
I've never seen anyone ever take so long to build a Subway sub in all my life. They sure do move at a different speed down in WV.
After dinner, we played some cards and then made a fire for Smores. Our neighbors across the road were from some YMCA... somewhere. They were fairly good neighbors. They played a lot of frisbee and did running-races against each other. That's about all we heard from them.
I think they may have done an overnight on the river because I don't think they were in their camp on Friday night. Our closest neighbors on our side of the road were way down at the end.
After our rafting trip on Friday, Bubbles took a nap. Her knee was really bothering her all day. It bothered her so much that we cancelled our rock-climbing and opted for flat-water kayaking, instead. That was a blast. The lake was so pretty early in the morning.
Here's my Everytrail.com tracks & pictures from that kayaking trip.
After we got back from kayaking, we spent the afternoon playing in the pond. A couple of our favorite toys were missing this year, but they moved the blob over to the tower for the MRSA-zip-line and we enjoyed watching people get launched. When we got back to the camp site, there was a grasshopper on my shirt. I got some cool pictures of him.
Then, we took a tour of the old coal-company company store. That was an awesome history lesson. We'll have to go back there a few more times over the years to watch how the restoration goes. Here's some interesting pics from that side-trip.
Best Pizza I EVER Ate: Pies and Pints' Pulled Pork Cuban Pizza
And, finally, here's the official rafting pictures from this year. Great times! Can't wait until next year. Bubbles will be old enough to do the Gauley River!
And, finally, here are some pictures available for purchase from leisuresportsphoto.com. Let me know if you want any of these, I'll be sure to give you the info on how to get them.
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BizB Thu Oct 20 09:42:43 AM 
Betty Boop Fri Sep 09 05:40:23 PM 
sopops Wed Sep 07 09:36:18 AM