A nice, peaceful, relaxing weekend (well sort of)

I should start by saying that if you are my mother you might not want to look at all the pictures as you will see your youngest child and most precious daughter in a possibly unsettling adventure.

It was supposed to be a nice peaceful relaxing weekend. Number 1 and Number 2 were each with a different set of grandparents. It started out as planned. I took the rare opportunity of being completely alone on Friday night to enjoy some time with a couple of friends. Nat and I ran a few errands after school and then Justin joined us for dinner. After dinner Nat and I headed to the local high school football game for our "we'll go once for the season" visit. Saturday was to be a day of a fun, with an uneventful jaunt down the Nantahala river. Well it was..in the beginning. Nat and Justin, Hubby and I, and two of our other friends Colin and Emily settled in for a 3 hour kayaking adventure down the river. Nat and I were sharing a kayak and having a wonderful time. We managed to handle the boat resonably well and managed to get to the end of the course where you can stop and check out the last rapid. It is the largest rapid on the river (a class IV) and is call "the falls." They tell you to stay to the left and you will be okay. Well Natalie and I got into our kayak and started heading left. This is difficult to do when the rapid current is pushing you in various directions. It was at this time that we hit a large cement barrier on the left side bank. As we pushed off of it we started heading down the falls BACKWARDS. This didn't seem like a good plan so we tried to turn our boat around. When we did we got rammed into a large rock sticking up out of the rapid. As we tried to free ourselves we got knocked out of the boat and preceded to swim down the falls. This would have been okay if my life had not begun to flash before my eyes. As the boat turned over it landed upside down on top of me. This means that I had about 2 inches of non rapidly flowing water to catch my breath while the "washing machine" effect of the rapid was forcing the raft down and trying to suck it AND me under the water. I took a quick breath and pushed myself out from under it. It was at this point that I began to repeat over and over to myself "GET YOUR FEET UP." That is the number 1 rule when rafting if you fall out. If you try and put your feet down when in a rapid your feet can easily get caught. Now, with this being said the force of the water makes it difficult to get your feet up. I managed to do this and continued to flail down the river across the rapids trying to simultaneously keep my feet up and get to shore. This was not an easy adventure as water kept rushing up into my face and my body was being thrown about. Luckily the Nantahala is very clean river. This is a good thing as I think I drank at least half of it. Anyway, I finally make it to the pull out that we had just been at examining the falls. This was a good 200 feet down the river and a very kind man helped pull my exhausted body from the river. I laid on top of the rocks for a minute making sure that I had survived this little adventure. The first words out of my mouth were "Where is my friend?" Luckily Justin had been able to pull her out of the water at the bottom of the rapids. Hubby had gone down second and got to watch as I plummeted down the river. I am still not sure who was more shell shocked by the adventure. Looking back on it now it was a funny thing that happened but in the moment I can assure you that it was one of the scariest few moments of my life. Of course, Natalie and I are already planning our revenge on the rapid! Below I will share a photographic essay of my adventure.If you look towards the back of this picture you will see the "cement" wall that we ran into.

The large white rapid in the center of the river is where we got stuck and flipped out.

Another view of the large rapid where we got flipped out. The people at the rafting center told us to stay to the left of the rapid and to stay out of the center no matter what. Natalie and I evidently wanted a challenge and decided to float down without the raft down the center of the rapids.

Do you see the two large boulders? I went down the center of them and finally got pulled out where you see the large mound of rocks pilled up.

Another shot of the rapids I went down...without a boat.

The outdoor center has a photographer who sits at about the group of rocks where I finally got out of the water. He caputred some "great" shots. The first two are actually really good ones of Hubby as he went down the rapid. The next two show me and Nat as we were tossed. You can barely see me because I am coming out from under the boat and my hair is being pushed into my face. The next picture is not a great one of me but shows the shear terror on my face as I charged down the river.

This adventure was a great reminder of the powerfullness of mother nature. Now, if only my body didn't hurt all over today. I managed to bang up both of my knees pretty good. One hurts a little more than the other. My chest is also pretty sore. I'm not sure if that is from tumbling over rocks or from paddling a river for a couple of hours. Of course, it could be a little of both.