Cheer camp, cub camp, scout camp, girls' camp, band camp, choreography, band leadership training, youth conference, and summer school, plus eight wisdom teeth removed, a dead air conditioner, a broken ankle, a broken freezer, a malfunctioning gas gauge, a leaky washing machine, and over $1,000 in school fees equals no time and no money for a real family vacation this year, but as the start of school loomed, we wanted to do something fun as a family this summer so we decided to try rafting.
Tuesday afternoon we drove up to Cherokee, NC, and checked into the Holiday Inn Express right across the street from Harrah's Cherokee Casino. Since Mark had used reward points to get the room free of charge, we decided to treat the kids to their first casino experience. (I just had to throw that in.) Actually, we treated the kids to their first experience at a casino buffet. The food was delicious and we all tried our best to eat our monies worth, with the exception of Bryce, who really only got into it once we started on dessert. I believe one of his trips through the buffet yeilded only a plate of rolls and fried rice, which he didn't actually eat because upon closer examination the rice had too much "stuff" in it.
Wednesday morning we drove to the Nantahala River where we did an 8 mile (about 2 hour) guided whitewater trip. The water in the Nantahala River comes from the bottom of Nantahala Lake through a hydroelectric dam and is a "refreshing" 50 degrees year round. When we got out of the car and the air temperature was only about 70 degrees as well, some of us were a little worried about freezing, but luckily, the rental company provided splash jackets so, even soaking wet, we were all comfortable.
About halfway through the trip the guide let Bryce sit on the front of the raft while we "surfed" some waves and the water made off with one of Bryce's shoes (which we never found), but that was our only mishap. Afterwards, we actually wished that Bryce had been a little older so that we could have done a trip with even more rapids.
After changing into dry clothes and stoping at The Burger Basket, a mountain grill so small it didn't even have tables (seriously, there were just about 8 stools set up for guests on the front porch) for some really, really good hamburgers, we headed home. It was a great mini-vacation and I think it was something that everyone would like to do again.
3 comments:
Awesome. Looks like such a fun little trip.
Reminds me of some great family memories!
Man! You guys were in NC and didn't even tell us?!
Glad you had fun. We took the scouts river rafting along the Ocoee River in Tennessee, which isn't too far from Nantahala. They all had a lot of fun. There were a few class 4 rapids with fun names that made things pretty interesting.
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