So it seems as if almost everything exciting I do is always with my cousins and family. This was again on one of our family reunions. One of the days, we decided to go white water rafting on the Ocoee River in Tennessee. I was really excited for this because the Ocoee is the river they ran the Olympic white river rafting course on in 1996. We would be rafting on the waters just below the part they used for the Olympics and even though there weren't any class 5 rapids, there were a lot of class three's and four's.
Our family had enough people for two rafts, so of course all of the younger generation quickly grabs a raft together leaving the elders on their own. My group consisted of my two sisters, one older and one younger, and then two of my guys cousin, who are super competitive. Right off my cousins told our guide that we wanted to go over the roughest and most dangerous waters. Good to his word, not 30 seconds into the ride our boat hit some rapids everyone except for me and the guide was thrown out of the raft. I still pride myself over the fact that I was able to hold on while my macho cousins flew into the water.
After that it became more and more exciting. The whole trip was now a competition to see who could stay in the raft more than the others. Our instructor managed to flip us, on purpose might I add, a total of 2 times and then I personally fell out five times. My cousin on the other hand fell out four so I still have that lorded over my head. The funniest part of it was when our guided instructed us to paddle right in to a rapid called "washing machine". His goal was that once we got into it, the water would spin us around a couple of times and then spit us out. During the course of this procedure, my six-foot cousin fell out of the boat and everyone but the guide reached out and tried to help him back in. Instead of helping, the guide simply shouted at us to "LEAVE HIM". We immediately just grabbed up our paddles and started rowing while my cousin floated down the river. We flipped the raft and were all then floating along behind him. My cousin told us afterwords how he couldn't believe that our guide wouldn't try to help him and how we all just let him go. He felt so unloved, but we got a kick out of it!
All-in-all, everyone had a great time. The trip lasted 3 hours and there was never a dull moment. At one point, our guide let us get out of the raft and ride the rapids on our backs! It was an amazing experience. The course that we took was through Ocoee Adventures and is said to be one of the best because at one point on the trip, they allow you to stop and jump off of this rock into the river. No other group is allowed to do that. Here is a link to the Ocoee Adventure website in case you want to plan your own trip: Ocoee Adventures and here's a map of the river: Ocoee River
I would give white water rafting on the Ocoee River a rank of 10.
5 comments:
I want to try this but it really does sound very daring. You see I'm very ill. I know you have visited my post several times....IN the Flash...my photography site but I also have another sight called "Misdiagnosed but never uninspired by life." I have a very rare illness called Behcets, it's sort of like lupus. So, my condition waxes and wanes...on and off. Sometimes I'm ok and other days are really horrible. I want to go on a family vacation before something happens to me in order to experience this with m family. This was my whole reason for starting a blog. I wanted to leave a legacy for them. So I would also like to experience as much as I possibly can with reason before something happens to me. What do you think? Do you think it would worsen my condition to do white water rafting or do you think I should go for it and take the chance..maybe, I would only suffer a couple of weeks from the strain???? I await your reply!
I know your whole reason for doing your blog was the beginning of life...your college grade! Isn't it funny, how we are both on the opposite end of our lives? You're trying to start yours and I'm concerned about how mine could be ending?
Wow, I'm so sorry for you. Your idea of doing the blog to leave something for your family is very smart. Well, I'm not really familiar with this condition so I don't know if it'd be bad for you to try it or not. But white water rafting is different everywhere you go. The one I went on was pretty rigorous, so I would say to start out with some calmer water and see if you can handle that. I'd say if your feeling really good, and if your doctor says it's ok you could try it out! But even if you don't go white water rafting, at least go on a family vacation and spend some valuable time with your family. You don't even have to travel anywhere if it's too hard. Just get a lot of your family members together and have everyone hang out for a day, talking or playing board games or such. I have so many good memories from doing things like that.
Oh I agree! I love to play board games! My favorite game is scrabble.
Just thought I would throw you a curve ball since you're doing this for your school work.
You handled it well, telling me you didn't know anything about my illness and offering other suggestions. Great Job!
lol well thank you! Ya scrabble is pretty fun, it hurts my head if I play it for too long though. :) My favorite is Cranium and Pictionary. They are fun to play with big groups of people.
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