River Adventures!

Our extended family has this wonderful tradition of camping up in the Tennessee mountains near a national park called Cades Cove. When we are in the states we have the pleasure of joining them and my grandmother's church who travel to this particular location every year. We all camp in this neat campground called Treamont hills on a river of which I cannot remember the name. Our activities? Well...as the campground is ON the river we load up all the trucks from the various members of the church with our huge tire tubes, and drive 'bout 4 miles up the river. Here the driver's drop us off for 4 hours of exhilarating fun! The river is different every year and each time we gather at it's banks we wonder what possible joy we could in throwing ourselves, limbs and all into the mercy of the numerous rapids. God must look down on us and shake his head wondering if we will ever learn our lesson. LOL. We have only received a few scratches though my grandmother when she was younger almost drowned. But that was partly because she can't swim. I have witnessed my cousin and sister Rachel tossed from their tubes at the beginning of a rapid to proceed the whole length without their tubes. This particular incident happened one morning after it had been raining all the previous day and through the night. We were anxious to get one more river trip in before we were to leave. No one else would even consider joining us so my 3 cousins, brother, mother, Rachie and I headed out into the swollen river. My cousin who dropped us off came to check on us as we were the sole occupants upon on the river that morning (we should have taken that as a clue) and he found us right after my cousins, and Rachies little incident. They weren't too thrilled and took his offer up to carry them back to the campground via truck. The rest of us started off again returning victorious with only a few scratches. Most of the time we go in a large group of about 30 and we always go up further then any other group that we have found. There are a few places where we have to get out and walk as the rapids are to wild or where there is a waterfall. We have also run across huge fallen trees where we have learned to climb OVER as one girls popped her tube trying to squeeze underneath. Besides these minor dangers are also the plague of water moccasins. Though most places you are moving too quickly to worry about such things; there are slow lanquid places where we race eachother, blistering our arms whilst paddeling ridiculously on our backs like giant water bugs. LOL.