Wow!  Another great weekend!  This year is shaping up to be one of the best on record!  I have lost a ton of weight, I have met some pretty amazing people, and I am doing stuff!!!  Not just the normal stuff like going out on the town with friends, but things like outdoor activities, traveling, etc.  It is great so far and I hope that this continues!!!

This weekend I did something that, until recently, I had been afraid to do:  White-water rafting.  A few weeks back, Bonnie brought up that we should all go to the Ocoee to white-water raft.  Everyone really seemed excited about it, so we decided to go! We left early on Saturday morning and got to the place at a little after 11:00 am eastern time.  Before, I was too afraid to do something like this.  I have not been the outdoorsy type.  I don’t like to be hot, I don’t like to fall, and I don’t like to be in a situation that is too dangerous…  so I never did anything…  Well after going this weekend, I can tell you that my fears were all imaginary.  I loved every second of it!!!  I loved the out of control feeling of the raft barreling toward a 10 foot dip in the water.  I loved not knowing if I would make it through the next set of rapids without falling out of the boat.  I loved not knowing what would happen next… and I loved the water.  Of course, I already know that I love water, but this was different.  It was not like a pool.  This was real.  It was cold, and it was powerful.

The adventure started at the top of the middle section of the Ocoee.  I can’t remember what the place was called, but it had some cool name and it made me feel all connected to the land and what not.  Anywho, our group was 7 people, so we had to split up into smaller groups.  The boys, me, Eric, Brian, and Medardo, all stuck together and the girls, Bonnie, Sarah, and Heather, went on another boat with three other girls.  :)  We got to our raft and met our guide.  Each boat gets a guide, and that person essentially sets the tone for your trip down the river.  Our guide was an older guy, maybe in his forties, by the name of Tyler.  It is actually kind of funny how we ended up with Tyler as our guide.  When the person announcing who gets whom told us that we would have to split up, we did not originally go all boys and all girls.  We did not have a plan…  but when we found out that we had to split into a group of three and a group of four, and that the group of four’s guide’s name was Tyler, all of us boys looked at each other and decided that we would all go with Tyler…  see, Tyler is a hot name… so we were hoping that Tyler would be some hot guy…    Well, we got to the starting point and met our guide.  Tyler was not who I imagined in my head, and I am VERY glad that he wasn’t.  Tyler was an experienced guide of fourteen years with long hair and a hippie kind of vibe.  Tyler gave us our crash course in rafting and we were on our way.

We were actually quite lucky to get Tyler.  He was open to whatever we wanted to do, yet still had control.  He knew everything about the river, rafting, and what to look for from the other boats.  Even when things got a little scary, I felt safe because he just seemed like nothing surprised him, and that alone illustrates how much he knew and how much he could handle.  He was calm but urgent when needed, he gave good directions, although most times Medardo could not follow them , and he was just all around great to ride with.

We went over several sections of rapids.  The first person to fall out of the boat was Medardo (go figure :p) and after we got him back in the boat, he just could not stop talking about how fun and exciting it was.  After a little bit longer, both he and I fell out… but we did not fall at a good place this time…  we actually fell at one of the more dangerous places of the river.  It was class 3 or 4 rapids only a few feet deep with quite a bit of force and rock.  What happened was that we hit a rapid and it through Medardo into the air.  As he came down, he hit me and we both fell in.  After I fell in, I struggled to get to the surface, but finally got there, but I was moving so fast.  That water was NOT kidding!!!  It really is powerful and it really does move you fast.  I was about what seemed like 30 to 40 feet away from any boat, and I could not really tell which way I was going.  Then, when I started to get my bearings straight, and I could start to hear Tyler yelling directions at me, my legs started hitting rock after rock.  Finally, I looked up and realized that I was in quite the predicament.  I had no control, no way of stopping, and the rocks were not getting and softer.  I finally got my head wrapped around the situation in time for me to hear Tyler scream “Right!!!  Swim right!!!  NOW!!!”  And so I followed directions as best I could.  I swam and swam but went nowhere.  The rapids were too forceful.  Suddenly, I saw a raft near me, so I got to that one and they pulled me in!  The amazing part, though, is that throughout the entire time, I had my paddle!  I had like a kung-fu death grip on that thing!   As I looked up, I saw that my raft had stopped up-river and only Brian and Eric, as well as Tyler, remained.  Medardo was nowhere to be found.  So we all had to keep going.  For the next few minutes, we tried to get to my original raft, and finally we made it…  and got stuck.    Tyler got out, got us going, and we moved on down the river to meet up with the rest of our company.  Medardo was still missing.  At this point, Brian, Eric and I are really beginning to worry.  We sat at a calm spot for a few minutes until we see Medardo about 6 rafts back just laughing and having a good time.  Then, like an action movie, their raft gets close to ours and Medardo jumps over the water from their raft to ours.  It was quite an impressive jump.

After that bit of excitement, we hang out for a while then get to our next big rapid.  That rapid was rough, but we all stayed in the boat.  The other boats, however, did not fare so well.  As each one hit that particular spot, it seemed as though it was raining people.  That is when Tyler said that we were going to have to go fishing!!!  And we did.  People kept falling, and other boats kept picking them up.  It was funny and exciting.  There was nothing harder, though, than trying to row against the current to get to a person who needed to be rescued.  It was SO HARD!!!  But we did it.  We got 2 or 3 people from the water, and rescued some other people’s boat…

The remainder of the trip was less exciting in terms of people falling out and getting caught in the rapids.  We stopped at a huge rock and climbed up it to jump into the river.  That was a little scary because the current takes you under water twice, but it was relatively safe…  then in some deep class two’s, we hopped out of the raft and floated down the rapids.  Of course after that, though, we had to swim back up the river to the boat.  Again… swimming up current is a bitch.  :p

After all that, we got to the end, but not before we had two more good sets of rapids.  Those rapids, Tyler said, were perfect for “riding the bull.”  “Riding the bull” is where a person sits on the nose of the raft, hangs out for dear life, and rides out the rapids like a rodeo!  Medardo went first and did okay, but Brian…  Brian was the champion of this rodeo.  He was awesome!!!  It looked so fun…  I will have to do that next time.

After that last set of rapids, we were done…  we all relaxed and enjoyed the ride to the end where we got off the rafts.

We got back to the outpost and changed… and that was just about that.  It was such an experience…  a GOOD experience…  I will be going back for sure!!!  I am so mad at myself for never doing things like this before…  I was too much a chicken!!!  It was safe, it was fun, and I have never experienced anything like it.  I felt alive…  fearless…  and I felt more connected to my friends than I have ever felt.

What’s next?!  I can’t wait to find out!!