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whitewater rafting

whitewater wrap-up. a week late.

August 29, 2010 by Rachel 5 Comments

I cannot believe it’s taken me an entire week to talk about our whitewater rafting trip last weekend! But it has been a crazy week of recovering… You’ll understand in a minute.

When we arrived at the campground for River Expeditions we found out that we and 700 of our closest friends were camping that same weekend. That’s right. Seven.hundred.people. We found what appeared to be a quiet camping area. After all, it was 10PM, I’d been up since 5AM, we had just driven for 5 hours and we had a 9AM rafting time the next morning.

We set up camp, walked to the only wash house {700 people, half of which I’m assuming were female, and about 8 bathroom stalls and ten showers? Gross.}, and decided to get some sleep to prepare for a physically tough next day.

Sleep never happened. The whole campground was loud, but we had a group of hillbillies next to us who were screaming all night. Screaming instead of talking. When they were only feet from each other. Screaming about Natty Light.

Not even our Tylenol PM we had taken could keep us asleep. And I’m pretty sure in a drugged-up haze, I told BF I wanted to throw a brick at the hillbillies heads. He asked me where I’d get the brick. I ignored him.

At around 2AM we made an executive decision to sleep in our car. Our itty-bitty, two-door, Honda Civic. So we did.

The next morning we checked in for rafting and went directly to the 20-minute breakfast line. Surely they must have something delicious if all of those people were waiting for a continental breakfast, right?

Wrong. Oh so wrong. But I’m not even going to complain about the food. I had fruit that we brought instead. What I’m going to complain about is mine, and quite a few others, request for water.

There were two options: from-concentrate OJ or coffee. Here’s the deal. Recent stomach issues and coffee or juice before going out on a 6 or 7 hour long trip in the great outdoors? Not gonna happen. So hence my question about why the water from the soda machine wasn’t working. Her response: We are putting more water in the juice. Um, ok, but what about just water? Didn’t happen.

The rafting trip itself was incredible. We were in a boat with a great group of people. There’s something about being put in a situation where you really have to rely on people around you to instantly make a group of strangers close. I loved it.

Post-rafting we ran into one of my favorite bloggers, Analiese from Tulips and Tea, and her husband Jason! This was by far, my favorite part of the trip. We hung out, fireside, for a few hours and had a lot of laughs! I hope to meet up with her again and hope our paths cross in the future!

So all-in-all, the trip was a success. But we are now recovering. BF has bronchitis and I am just trying to stay healthy.


However, we will never, ever go back to River Expeditions. The outfitter we used last year, ACE Resort, was awesome and the only place I would truly recommend to anyone. You can see my old post here to see the differences in trips.

Filed Under: 101 in 1001, adventure, bloggers, camping, friends, travel, weekend, whitewater rafting

monday, monday.

August 16, 2010 by Rachel 7 Comments

This week is going to be busy! So much to accomplish, so little time!

Here’s how I’ll be spending this week:

1. working. that’s a given.

2. spending my lunch breaks reading. i really must do this. i ache for time to read. i feel like i never can find the time. it’s there. i just need to make it.

3. spending time with BF. it’s monday night movie night, so we will be heading to $5 theater night to see scott pilgrim vs. the world.

4. running. tuesday, wednesday, and thursday. running, running, and more running. i’m looking forward to this. a lot. no joke.

5. doing yoga. last week i fell out of my groove with the whole being deathly ill thing, but this week i’m hoping to fit in at least 2 classes. yes, only 2 cause i’ve got a crazy physical week this week.

6. dropping oscar and pepper off at grandma and grandpas house for the weekend {also known as my mom and dads}. they are going to spend some quality time with them cause we are going…

7. whitewater rafting this weekend! yep, heading to west virginia and the new river for a nice camping/rafting trip! it will be fun and exhausting.

Filed Under: life, movie, Oscar, Pepper, whitewater rafting

happy “this feels like a monday” tuesday!

July 7, 2010 by Rachel 9 Comments

Hope everyone had an awesome holiday weekend! We had a small get together on Sunday and it was lovely. True story.

One of my four freshman college roommates {in Buffalo, NY} just moved to Cleveland to do her residency at Rainbow Babies and Children hospital. I’m so excited to have someone from that part of my life living close to me. She and her boyfriend came over on Sunday and it was so good to see them! True story.

We also have yet another Whitewater Rafting trip in our immediate future. We’ve been wanting to do this for a while and a great deal came up on Groupon that we just couldn’t pass up. So sometime within the next month and a half we will be heading back to West Virginia for an awesome weekend away! True story!

My mother is itching for grandchildren like you wouldn’t believe. NIM and her husband came over on Sunday as well. They brought their adorable little one {seriously NIM, if you want a night out, BF & I are babysitting!}. My mother oohed and ahhed over the little one. I was watching her to make sure she wasn’t going to steal her when NIM wasn’t looking. True story.

This resulted in my mother making even more comments to BF about when she was going to be a real grandma {instead of just to her “grandpuppies”}. True story.

Last but not least, I’m excited to announce that I will be starting a new job next Monday! I am really excited about feeling like a productive member of society again. Not that my current part-time job doesn’t count. It does, but it doesn’t fulfill me. True story.

Filed Under: babies, family, friends, holidays, job, true story, weekend, whitewater rafting

Whitewater Adventure 2009 = success!

June 4, 2009 by Rachel 2 Comments

I’m finally back and able to pay a little attention to my poor blog! As a heads up, this is a LONG (BUT TOTALLY WORTH IT) post with a TON of pictures!! If you have the patience to make it all the way through, I hope you’ll leave me a nice little comment!

Saturday:
woke up. ran to starbucks (of course) to pick up some vivanno‘s (If you have never had them, I suggest you go out and get one ASAP!). We left the house around 10:00 am. We had every intention of leaving at 9… yeah, that didn’t happen. We set the GPS, and off we went! Projected time = 4.5 hours. However, add three (yes, THREE) restroom stops (I can’t help it, I pee a lot), and we made it in about 5 hours. Not too shabby!

Our first stop was the Whipple Company Store. I have to say, that while I had done a great deal of planning for this trip, I wasn’t 100% sure what I was getting us into. BF and I are both big into museums and other nerdy stuff, so I figured, why not, right? Well we arrived and I looked at BF and said “if it sucks, I’m sorry.” It was in the middle of nowhere. Not just saying that, I mean, it literally was. We thought we were lost and I looked up and said… “Oh.”

It was incredible. We learned so much about coal mining and the history of West Virginia. The couple who run the store bought it 2 years ago. At the time it was a condemned building and it was going to be torn down. The couple couldn’t bear to see this happen so they bought the place and started renovating it with their own funds! Their plan is to have the store/museum operating as a non-profit organization in three years. The only problem is that they are no longer able to use their own money to restore the building. They are having a benefit this weekend and we were very sad that we will not be able to make it.

BF and I were very happy to have stopped by and to have met such wonderful people. I KNOW that we will be visiting again (and keeping in touch!).

Above: Me in our tent.

After we left the WCS, we went to “check-in” at the adventure resort. We set up camp and headed to get some grub! The drive really exhausted us so we went to bed pretty early. It thunderstormed ALL night. Literally. All. Night. Kept us awake because the storms were so severe. Minimal flooding in the tent, but zero sleep due to the horrific weather.


Above: Our campsite.

Sunday:
We set an alarm to wake up rather early to get some breakfast before our whitewater trip departed, but I want to send a big, sarcastic, thank you to the chick with the annoying laugh that woke up at 5 (thunderstorms stopped at 4am) with talking. Thank you annoying chick.

Post-annoying girl, we dragged ourselves down to get some morning grub (knowing full well we would need it for the LONG rafting trip ahead). It was delish. We headed up to meet our guide, sign our paper work (aka-sign our lives away) and head out on a bus to the launch point.

Above: BF and I before our big whitewater trip.


I jumped off of a giant rock (known as Jump Off Rock — where they get these names, I just don’t know… πŸ˜› ).

Above: Picture of Jump off Rock from the river.
Above: Me getting ready to leap off the rock (yes, dude named Austin taking video of my tattoos).

There were class 3 thru class 5 rapids (eek! scary) on the new river from all of the storms they had the previous week.

Above: Me (thanks BF for taking pictures).

Above: Our raft. I’m in it. BF is not. He’s taking the pic.


Above: Lunch break. AKA picture time!

Above: BF & I on a mini-hike, mid-rafting trip.


Above: BF and I.


Above: Us in the raft. BF is such a good little picture-taker. πŸ™‚

After the rafting trip we headed back onto the bus. I know this may not shock all of you, but they gave us beer on the way back (like, on the bus). I guess I was just surprised, because they could have just given us waters or sodas or whatever, but they actually want their guests to have tons-o-fun. For sure! Once we got back, we grabbed some dinner. Exhaustion began to set in, but s’mores were to be had! So we headed back to camp to start a fire! Woo hoo! I love campfires! We played some Scrabble Apple and drank a couple of Mike’s Hard Lemonades and at our delicious S’mores!

Above: Me toasting my marshmallow.

Above: Me eating my delicious s’more!


Above: Me & BF sitting by the fire… kicking his butt in ScrabbleApple.

After the s’mores, we pretty much passed out (like at 830…. seriously). We were exhausted and we knew we had a big day ahead of us.

Monday:
Woke up. Packed up. Played some ping-pong. Ate lunch. Tried to sell back some un-used firewood (a no-go, btw). Went to check in to our climb & rappel trip. Before I begin,… I am afraid of heights. This has never stopped me from doing things. I have this theory that if I JUST do this ONE thing, I won’t be afraid anymore. So I go hang gliding, hiking, etc. Nothing ever makes me overcome it, but I get to do a lot of cool things in the meantime. First came the rappel.

Above: BF getting his gear on.


Above: BF rappelling first time.


Above: BF rappelling down 80 feet!

Above: Me, terrified. Rappelling.



Above: Me again.


Above: Me, getting lower. You can see (a little bit) BF in the background.


Above: One last shot of me hanging…

I didn’t do that awesome at the rock climbing, but BF made it all the way to the top!

Above: BF Climbing to the top!


Above: Me climbing (somewhat).

After the climb, we left West Virginia and headed home! The drive took longer than expected (I made BF stop for TCBY and Starbucks!) but we eventually made it. I held my own little mini-concert in the car, hairbrush mic and all! Overall the trip was a HUGE success! BF enjoyed his birthday present! (Yay!) and so did I! πŸ™‚ We took Tuesday off of work and spent the day going out to lunch (and dinner) and going to see the movie UP (totally recommend this movie!). Hope everyone enjoyed! Let me know πŸ™‚

Filed Under: adventure, camping, trip, whitewater rafting

Gathering my thoughts.

May 26, 2009 by Rachel 3 Comments

I’m feeling like I have a lot to catch up on today… The long weekend may have done more harm than good. I’m not complaining, I’m just saying that in life, I need as much time to focus as possible. I haven’t posted anything since Saturday; I had over 200 work emails this morning; I have three presentations/trainings to give this week; and about a million deadlines to meet! Not to mention a trip to prepare for (yay!).

So in a (sad) attempt to gather my thoughts after the long weekend… here it goes:

– The girly-ness that is now me (thanks BF, thanks). I never used to be girly. I was the girl without the emotional attachments. I didn’t want anything serious and I always grew tired of the other and got rid of them. Not so much anymore. BF has changed things. How, you ask? Well, I watch (some) chick flicks now. It’s horrible. I cry. He asked me if I want to watch Bride Wars the other night (yes, HE offerred to watch!). I cried. WAY TOO hard. For real. I don’t even want a big wedding. And. I. Bawled. But yes, I said “I don’t even want a big wedding,” meaning, I want one. Just not a big one (other HUGE thing he changed – I never wanted to get married. EVER.).

– Speaking of girly. John & Kate Plus 8. I can’t help it. People hate them (BF hates them). But I love them. I think the children are adorable. But this season is (already) tearing me apart! They CANNOT get divorced! And I refuse to believe that either one of them cheated.

– Work is dragging me down. BIG time. They “released” someone of their duties last week (AKA fired them) and now I feel like I’ll be even more overloaded with work. BLAH! That’s not what’s supposed to happen. WTF.

– Just gotta make it to the weekend. Then fun, sun, rafting and BF! πŸ™‚

Filed Under: training, trip, TV, whitewater rafting

So much going on

April 24, 2009 by Rachel 2 Comments

There is so much going on within the next few weeks, it’s ridiculous.


-tomorrow BF and I are going to the Indians versus the Twins game. I love going to live sporting events… the energy, the outdoors, the hotdogs, the beer! All make for a wonderful experience! Plus it’s “fireworks” night. BF seemed very excited about this part. And, in theory, I’m excited about this part. There is something cute and slightly romantic about fireworks, I suppose. The only problem is that I am slightly frightened of fireworks. Oh well. I’ll deal with it and just make him ‘keep me safe.’ πŸ˜‰

-I’m also supposed to hear about the job tomorrow… EEEK. Could make or break me.

-Saturday I am volunteering at the Akron Zoo for their Party For The Planet in celebration of Earth Day. I am handing out information on Earthwatch Ohio, which is a non-profit group focused on sustainable living. I’ve (somehow?) convinced BF to join me. We are supposed to have BEAUTIFUL weather this weekend, so, if nothing else, I will get some sun. πŸ™‚

-Next Friday May 1st, I have Girls Nite with two of my favorites. It’s Margarita Nite at All Fired Up! in Akron. It’s BYOT (Bring Your Own Tequila)! They provide the snacks. We are going to spend the evening drinking margaritas, painting pottery, snacking, and chatting. Sounds pretty fantastic to me! πŸ™‚ I’m very excited.

-Shortly there after (the 13th) is BF’s birthday. I’m not quite sure what I”ll be doing that day, mostly because it’s a weekday and both of our schedules may be pretty hectic.

-Then I will be dropping him and his mother off at the airport. They are going to Denver to visit family. I don’t really want to talk about this. I’m not really happy about it, for many reasons.

-When he gets back, we will (or at least should be, if all goes as planned) going on our big camping/whitewater trip! I’m pretty pumped.

But most of this depends on the “big news” I will hear tomorrow. Sooo doing my fair share of praying for this.


Filed Under: airport, Akron, All Fired Up, baseball, camping, Ecowatch Ohio, fireworks, Indians, job, margarita, pottery, whitewater rafting, Zoo

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