Monday, August 02, 2010

USNWC

At the end of the summer, the church staff decided to have an intern celebration outing. We headed to the US National Whitewater Center in Charlotte. There was so much stuff to do there. We had a blast!

The first thing we headed to was the MegaJump. It was a 40 ft free fall. Wow. It looks much higher on the platform than it does on the ground. I also learned something new about my husband. Who knew he was afraid of heights? But we both did it!


I relived my days at Pine Cove as the climbing wall instructor, only there was no belaying. They had this really cool system that slowly lowers you to the ground.


John got really into the climbing wall.


After everyone else left, JD and I went to pick up a couple of Letterboxes that were on the trails. JD had this great idea to get mountain bikes and ride the trails. It would be faster that way. I was a bit hesitant since I don't ride much on the street, much less on trails. But I gave in. It had been a day full of yeses that were fun, so this one would be too, right? WRONG!

First of all, the trails were steep. For me anyway. Or maybe we got on a black trail. No idea. So pretty much once we entered the trail, I began to walk the bike. We found the first box quickly. Then it hit me. This BIKE trail is ONE WAY. There was no turning back. We had to keep going on the bikes...or walking the bike in my case. It was awful. And the trail kept going and going and going. Seriously had to have been a couple of miles. Winding. Uphill. Downhill. Over the snakes. By the lake. Lots of mosquitoes. Misery. At least we found the box we were looking for, right?

BUT, the VERY BEST part of the day was the rafting. I loved it! I was a bit timid at first. Definitely didn't want to get thrown out of the raft. There were two channels. The first was class II-III rapids. And then the competition channel, where the US Olympic team trains, was class III-IV.

JD's group was a bit more adventurous than my group. He stuck them under the water and did some other crazy stuff. JD even knocked his buddy out of the raft. She's just a girl, JD!


We had an extra person on our raft (The three men weren't with our group) and somehow I ended up on the back of the raft with the guide. I was nervous being up high, until she told me I would NOT fall our of the raft. Shew!


We had a GREAT day! I loved almost every minute of it!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

It looks like everyone had a great time. I'd still like to go rafting sometime when we are there. This may be the best place, rather than having to find a river, raft, etc.
Dad

Mom said...

You were very adventuresome on this day. I'm right there with you, John. Heights are not my thing even though as I've grown older, the fear isn't quite as intense.

gena said...

Sounds like a great place to go, and a lot of fun!

I got rid of my super-fancy mountain bike because I too wound up walking it most of the time. And as it turns out, I don't really like biking!