Oh My Achin' Tush!

I'm sitting here very sore and tired but so excited from this weekend I had to start writing about it. A group of us went to The Okoee river in Chattanooga TN white water rafting and we had a hoot. Our caravan left out early Friday, stopped to eat lunch and arrived in time to set up camp and check out the river in the light. We stayed up late talking around the campfire and toasting marshmallows to make delicious smores. We woke up Saturday and ate breakfast and then since our rafting didn't start until 11:30, decided to take a hike. It was pretty awesome because there were all these signs warning about bears on the way. It was a gorgeous trail. Tina was our brave and fearless, face the spider, leader. She was entrusted with a big stick that she waved to and fro that began to resemble putting a hex on the trail ahead or perhaps blessing it? Anywho, there were only a couple screeching girl moments when she missed one and got a face full of web but she quickly toughed up and kept on movin'. I was so proud. ---Note to self:Put treadmill on steep incline for over an hour to get buff legs--- My lower body strength wreaks!! I was soooo disappointed at my wusstiferness. This would be the reason my legs feel like wet noodles now. Anywho, we came back down the mountain and Tina and I decided to race....huh hmmm. Apparently me and Forrest are both fast runners. Tina's probably gonna shank me for mentioning this again, but I guess I'm just still in shock over whooping the pants off of her. :D Course, my lungs were about to wheezy burst so if we had to go any longer I would have fallen down the mountain or something from a lung explosion. Still a hoot though. Anywho, once we were back at camp, it was time to go so we put on our swim gear and drove out. The rafting was one of the funnest things I've ever done. It was breathtaking scenery and very blood pumping fun. I whacked myself in the nose with the t bar of my oar and that was pretty awesome. We flew out like popcorn on this one rapid after Tina bowling pinned us all, I promptly let my oar sail away, whacked my cheek bone on a rock under water, and proceeded to get stuck in a "washing machine" that made me a water whack-a-mole. The boat was stuck over me for what felt like quite some time and I thought, "well air would be cool at this point. No? More water...ok. What about now..." And then before I knew it, one of the guys from the other boat in our group was pulling me up by my life vest. I said,"oh! You're not my boat"....and looked to see it way down the river. So I thanked him and started swimming like a crazy woman. I finally caught up and as I turned to adjust myself to get pulled in, my hip bone was kind enough to locate a rock underneath me. Anywho, our guide on the second half was a bit of a stoner hippie type but turned out to be a ton of fun. He asked who wanted to cowgirl up and guide us over a class 4 rapid at one point and I jumped up and went to the back of the boat. It was awesome! He gave me a few pointers and then let me have at it, and we didn't die! Once I let him take over again, we were going through this one rapid(namely what he called "Fuzzy box of kittens") and he looked at us and said, "bye." and I thought, "pshh. I ain't flyin ou.....WHOA!!" and there I flew. I didn't whack any bones this time. But he was laughing when we all got back in because he said, "See, from my prospective, when you fall out and are trying to get back in on that rapid, it's like a fuzzy box of kittens clawing to get out of the white water." Sweet.
Ok, so I started this post a million days ago and decided it was time to go ahead and post, because I have a ton more write about. But that trip was soooo much fun. Tina and I, dare I say it??????, have become quite outdoorsy! We simply love camping and apparently can't get enough of it. Ok, that's it. I'll post a picture if I can get a good one.