It has been close to a year- give or take a month, since my last confession I mean post, so please excuse the delay, but now I am back, feeling giddy and kinda silly. My kids have passed the diaper/dress me phase and can carry their own packs, walk their own distances, which has empowered our family adventures.
Whitewater rafting in the Nantahala Gorge
Whitewater rafting down the Nantahala River.
We did head back to Helen, Georgia for a spot of tubing, this time with our teen in tow, but it was obvious that the rippling rapids had become too tame, so we took a detour to Nantahala Gorge to experience our first whitewater rafting experience on the Nantahala River. Fear had never stopped us before, but our pint sized roller coaster rocker 8 year old lightweight had. All of the rafting companies specify ages (usually 10 and up or weight requirements.) A serendipitous experience- isn’t it always? That took us from a country road traffic jam to the best little BBQ shack in Franklin (more about that later), landed us with finding the Paddle Inn Rafting company (www.paddleInnRafting.com) whose age limit was 7- blessed be! Woohoo- were were going rafting! The aid of an iPhone map app led us into the gorge in North Carolina (and then stopped working, because apparently, even satellites don’t have a fix that deep in the gorge!)You can rent the Paddle Inn’s self-bailing rafts for extremely reasonable under $14 per person without a guide, however, having never experienced it before and with three kids of extremely different temperaments, we decided to hire a guide, and were assigned “Randy” to take us down the class III rapids.After the safety and pep talk, we loaded into an old bus to the dock to begin our adventure.