July 19, 2015–Day 14 Hiwassee Day 2

  • Jul 27, 2015
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ADRENALINE OVERLOAD DAY 2

Cody woke up and checked on Snaily, Jr. Snaily, and Mini Snaily.  We found more smaller snails hiding on our picnic table. Scott took Cody to the creek on the path from our campsite.  The kids worked on reconstruction of The Lost Creek.  After cleaning up our mats, sheets, and sleeping bags I eased on down to the creek to see what they were up to.  I caught a quick picture of Cody’s wet footprints as he scurried across the rocks. It turns out it is easier to catch a picture of his footprints than a picture of him.

“Mom!  There’s tadpoles in this creek!” Cody is our family expert on finding small critters. I couldn’t catch a picture of his new critters.

Cody found a special rock he named Meatball. The kids would have been happy playing in the creek all day.

We left at 10:36 for the river.  We discovered Brooke had sat on and destroyed her tablet. Long pause. Well, I was missing the usual fighting and screaming during long car rides…

Today Scott floated down river in his kayak and the kids and I paddled a ducky with the kids.

Scott wearing his favorite skirt.  The kids have never seen him wear his spray skirt, so they were intrigued.

Cody sat snuggly between my legs without a paddle.  Brooke had a paddle.  It was mostly ornamental. More on that later…

We stopped for a snack on this mini island.  Scott was able to help a woman who fell out of her kayak with his throw bag.

So this is how I envisioned most of our float trip to go today.  Us stuck on a rapid and Scott floating happily on and laughing. Thankfully he decided to help us, that is, after he took a lovely photo though.  Brooke took it all in stride. Poor Cody is trying to smile, but is stressed. I decided to smile. Sometimes you get hung up on rocks in life and all you can do is laugh your way through.  It easier to laugh when you don’t feel like you are putting your kids in danger though. With that rapid behind us I decided to do what most people do when they spend a day on the river, relax.

Once I relaxed the kids decided to relax too. They started hopping out of the boat more to swim back and forth between Scott and I in between rapids. Cody was still tentative about swimming, but he managed to wear a big smile anyway.

It took us two and a half hours to get down the river today. The river is dam released. When we took off on our shuttle from the Hiwassee Outfitters at noon the newly released water had still not reached the outfitters. However, the water was rolling at full level when we put out into the river.

After getting stuck on rocks twice I finally got the hang of correcting for Brooke’s random paddling and watching for the greater flow of water and following it. I had a few tense moments in the beginning but eventually I was able to relax and enjoy the calm moments and even the adrenaline rich rapids.  You know that sibling rivalry we all love? Now imagine that mixed with a heavy dose of teenage defiance (yes, I know she’s only eight) and being tossed in a giant washing machine while floating on a leaf.  No, that’s not quite right.  I forgot to mention the giant rocks and trees that are also sticking out of the water, and the paddles.  The paddles that only seemed to send us in circles for the first half hour of the trip.  I remembered yesterday when Scott would kindly remind me that I stopped paddling and looked like a deer in headlights on the first few rapids. Brooke did the same thing today.  When we were right in the thick of the rapids and I needed her to dig deep, she just stared. It was a little like riding a toilet bowl flush on the way down with no way out. Eventually I got Brooke to paddle, but sometimes she was still so awe struck that she was just paddling air.  When I tried to gently point that out she decided she was done paddling during the rapids. It all worked out, but the long stretches of soaking in the sun helped me to keep smiling despite my sometimes overwhelming feeling of having no control and needing to keep my kids safe.

When we were finally off the river I breathed an incredibly deep breath. Scott asked, “Better?” I responded, “Yep! I didn’t kill anyone!” He responded, “There was never any question of that happening.” I responded, “Maybe in your mind.”

Guess who needed to jump off the train bridge again?

We were extremely excited to take showers at the Hiwassee Outfitters and there was no water.  The power had been off for over an hour due to high winds.  Thankfully, five minutes after we inquired as to why there was no water, it came on.

Scott made an apple cobbler.

We discovered leaving Snaily right where Scott cooks and washes dishes was a bad idea.  Snaily was crushed. The picture of the kids pointing at the tree was a contest Brooke set up for Cody. She loves giving him challenges. Come to think of it she loves doing that with us too… Life is never boring with our beautiful children.

We finished reading My Side of the Mountain.

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