Tubing

It was a long, long, long drive from Charleston to Western Virginia—about 400 miles—but we were eagerly anticipating a tubing adventure at New River Junction. Our camp site was right on the bank of New River and the scenery was stunning. 

New River Junction, VA

The freight trains rolling through every hour haling coal along both sides of the river detracted a bit from the serenity of the scene, but it was a fabulous spot. It was cooler in the mountains (thank God) and we had a nice campfire both nights we were there. 

Oh I wish I were an Oscar Meyer wiener...

In the morning, we rented inner tubes and launched into the river. It's been a dry summer and the river level was pretty low—resulting in a very slow ride down the river and a lot of butt-dragging on the river bottom. Fortunately, we Smiths are experienced butt-draggers and this was just our speed. It took about a hour to drift down the one mile stretch of river from the campground to the head of the "rapids." My knee was still acting up, so I was a bit nervous about the section of rapids. To play it safe, I sent the women-folk through first :) After it was clear that they hadn't drowned, I decided to brave the rapids myself. My center of gravity being a few inches higher above the tube imparted to me a certain degree of longitudinal instability. Finding myself upside-down in the rapids with no tube and a gimpy knee definitely tripped on my flight-or-fight response mechanisms. Fortunately, I didn't smack into any (big) rocks and was able to retrieve my tube at the bottom of the rapids. I guess Rachelle and Amaya enjoyed the ride a bit more than I did because they shot the rapids four or five more times. As far as I could determine, the only reason they stopped was because they spied some sort of water snake lurking near a big rock on the shore. Rachelle is terrified of snakes and she has no misgivings about passing along her phobia to the twins. Amaya (reluctantly) agreed to accompany me down the lazy river portion of the tubing course one more time, but our otherwise peaceful ride was punctuated by piercing cries of "snake, snake....I felt a snake!" The periodic hysteria also detracted from the serenity of the environment. We had a nice cookout on the shore overlooking the rapids before catching the shuttle bus back the campground launch point. Before we knew it, our tubing expedition had taken up most of our day. It was a fun way to spend a hot summer afternoon. Everyone had a good time despite the (harmless) snakes.

Amaya negotiates  the rapids

That night, we cooked s'mores over the campfire (astonishingly, something that we hadn't yet done on our trip!) and played a fun Apples to Apples family game at the picnic table. Keiko teases me that I'm too competitive when we play games, but based upon this photo I'm not sure that I'm the one with the problem. All in all, a really fun day.

Keiko declares victory over all mankind