Rollin' on the River.

For those of you (my parents) who have actually followed our entire vacation via my blog and thus are eagerly awaiting the exciting conclusion..my apologies that it's Friday and I'm just now getting around to putting up Wednesday's post. But to be honest...I've been completely exhausted and this is the first second I've gotten to just sit down and type. So...without further ado....

Since Keith and I decided we needed one more day of vacation, we drove back to Columbia Wednesday morning to go tube the Saluda River. Keith found Palmetto Outdoors through Google, made a reservation, invited his brother Mark, and off we went. Well...sort of. The story is a tad more complicated and amusing than that. When we arrived in Columbia at 1 pm (we'd called on the way and made a 4pm reservation for 3) it was overcast. Nay, thundering and stormy. We were pretty determined that we wanted to tube the river, but Keith (and I really...if I'm going to be honest) was worried that tubing a river during a thunder and lightning storm wouldn't be the best idea. Especially since we've seen all too recently what lightning can do. So we called the tubing comany. No, they said, they didn't think there were any storms on the radar. We'd be fine to tube at 4. We called Mark. Mark claimed that he and their other brother Brian had tubed the river in the rain plenty of times. ("In fact, most of the times we've gone tubing it rains. Once we had thunder and lightning but we just climbed out of the water onto some rocks. We'll be fine.") Keith and I, not entirely convinced this was safe, but both too excited about tubing to cancel unless forced, decide to forge ahead with our plans. At the tubing office we are greeted by the most thorough, professional teenage boy either of us had ever met who laid out the 3 rules of the company:
1. Always stay in your tube.
2. Always point your feet downstream.
3. Never stand up in whitewater.
We fill out waivers and surrender Keith's drivers' licence as collateral. (He asked if Keith was the "group leader" and then continued to refer to him as such...much to our amusement. What did we look like...a youth group?) It's 3:30. He tells us the shuttle will meet us at the parking lot where we leave our car at 3:45. We go straight to the parking lot. Mark meets us 5 minutes later. It's now sprinkling. We wait. The shuttle shows up at 4:02. It's a small bus...the type used by most churches. We climb on board to find that half the bus is filled with kayaks and tubes. The professional teenager is behind the wheel and assures us he's "driven a motor home before." 3 other teenage employees (one of whom shows up on an offroad skateboard wearing a wetsuit) and a middle aged man who appears to be the owner climb on board with us. They are all going kayaking together while we tube. We drive about 3 miles and one of the boys announces that the back door of the bus has swung open. The half-clad wetsuit surfer boy climbs like a monkey over the various asundry outdoor gear and pulls the door shut. We arrive safely at the put-in spot where the professional teenager walks us down a path, reviews the 3 rules, tells us to "hug the right" (side of the river that is) and points at some large rocks. "You can put in somewhere down there" he says and leaves. Keith, Mark and I have all been supressing laughter (I didnt' suppress very sucessfully) this whole time. We clamber over the rocks and put our tubes in the freezing cold water. It rained part of the 2 hour trip...but we didn't have any thunder or lightning and thoroughly enjoyed our trip over all. We'd recommend it...but would caution that organization and punctuality might not be this particular company's strong suit. However at only $15 a person and with the free shuttle service...it's a great deal.

Bring it!


Get ready......'cause it's comin'!


The water was FREEZING when we first put in...and I was trying to postpone my butt getting numb until the last possible moment.


The first rapids we came to...this picture was taken just before Mark flipped and ended up in the drink.


Keith and I chillin' out on the tubes!


Rule #2: always keep your feet pointed downstream. This was Keith's view of the river.

Keith's wallet and driver's licence were in the drybox of the middle-aged owner guy, who took about 20 minutes longer than we did to get down the river so we had a bit of a chilly, wet wait at the end...but not too bad. We said goodbye to Mark (again) and headed back to Keith's mom's where she'd run a hot bubble bath for me in the garden-sized tub upstairs. It was as if I'd visited a spa...she'd also lit candles and had relaxing music playing. I curled up for about 45 minutes and relaxed and read a book. We ate a yummy dinner of crappie fish that Ms. Pat and Rick had caught in Lake Murray and grilled squash from their garden with homemade vanilla ice cream and fresh peaches for dessert! I went straight to bed after dinner, exausted and super-relaxed from my bath while Keith got his turn to visit the spa. We left Thursday morning to drive back to Nashville and had a relaxing drive through Asheville, NC and the mountains on the way back. I hope you enjoyed our South Carolina vacation.....stay tuned for my California adventures beginning on Sunday!