Team Smokies

On our last day in the Smokies, we woke up before sunrise to this incredible view. We packed up the car, put in our warmest layers, and said goodbye to our little cabin in the woods. Then we set our sights on Tennessee to go white water rafting on the Ocoee River. The temperature? 32 degrees. Yikes.

We drove an hour and a half to the put-in on the Ocoee where we were supposed to meet the rest of our rafting group. Then we waited, and waited, and waited. And nobody came!

After about 45 minutes of reading and rereading our confirmation email to make sure we got the details right, we started wondering if our 9:15 arrival time was a typo on the email. Sure enough, at 10:15, our guides arrived with the rafts. Our annoyance briefly dissipated as soon as the adrenaline started going while we got ready to start our adventure. We donned some wetsuits and splash jackets and were ready for action!

We got debriefed in a little white water rafting safety and then walked our raft to the bottom of a nearby dam that had just been opened up to create the rapids on the river. And then we were off!

We had a rad time on the 2 hour trek down the river— there were no out-of-boat experiences, we got soaked, and the cold weather proved not to be a big deal because of our toasty warm wetsuits. Here’s a pic of us in action! (clearly we didn’t spring to pay money for it…)

The cold set in as soon as we took those wetsuits off so we cranked the heat in the car and hit the road back to Virginia. Unfortunately, our drive west that morning had added an hour and a half to our trip so it was a looong drive home but with a lot of wedding details to talk about we made the best of it.

We arrived in Richmond late that night and it was back to reality. But our super adventure on the Ocoee River was an awesome way to end our Smoky Mountain getaway.

PS: I owe Phil an apology for ALL the skeptical glances I gave him on our drive to the river everytime I looked at the temperature. I’m sorry! Thanks for making me do things even when I’m being all cynical!