LiveForTheLaunch
CF Legend
So, for those of you that know me, you know I'm not an outdoorsy girl at all. I prefer the mall, the city centre, luxury hotels, and the like; however, earlier this week I went on a multi-day trip to ACE Adventure Resort in West Virginia, which was completely out of my element but amazing nonetheless!
We left on Sunday, which was mostly just for driving purposes because it was an eight hour drive and we wanted the full two days at the resort. So, we just stayed at a hotel with a pool and a hot tub, which we took advantage of before passing out really early. I was a bit concerned as I practiced my swimming skills in the pool and realized they're completely non-existent!
The next day we headed out around 8:30am and made a stop at Wal-Mart along the way. This was when I realized that West Virginia has possibly the fattest population of any state I've ever seen, besides maybe Missouri. We just grabbed some pop and some subs, which was jokes because I vowed like, never to eat a sub for a very long time after our abundance of Subway on the live a few weeks ago! We got the resort at about ten, but the weather was kind of chilly and it looked like rain was on the way, so we just hung around since check-in wasn't until two (actually four, but my dad lied and said I didn't feel good so we could get in earlier, ha). My dad decided he was bored of waiting, so he played on the zip line by himself like a big kid, until he basically forced me to join him, so I did!
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbqiwbD6H4A&feature=youtu.be[/youtube]
Sadly, I lost my bathing suit shorts on my way down, but they didn't come completely off so that was a good thing! It started storming, so we ate some lunch and eventually went back into the lake once the storm subsided. The weather let up and it ended up being a nice, sunny day.
The slide and the "blob" were one time things for me. I have a fear of going underwater, and both caused that so I did them once and decided never again
. I fell off the blob once and then sucked up a bunch of water the one time I did it successfully, and my dad dislocated his elbow, so we steered clear .
I also sat around on the beach for a bit.
When we were done playing on all the childish toys and had our fill on the zip-line, we checked into our cabin.
We found out there were a lot of hiking trails that give a great view of the gorge, so equipped in my hiking gear which consisted of my black purse, pink overalls, and yellow sandals (ha, such a girl), we made our way there. First, we went to the visitor's centre, which had a patio on the back that gave a nice view.
At first, the hiking was nice and smooth and flat, but eventually it started going uphill. Things started going downhill for me though once I saw a spider, and once we had to run through an area where there was a bee's nest!
We made it to the outlook after about fourty minutes, which was beautiful!
They have rappelling trips down this piece of rock, which I think would be terrifying but awesome!
This was the river I was going to be rafting on the next day!
I even saw a gecko!
To put things into perspective, I started seeing a bit more wildlife on the way back (and by wildlife, I mean spiders), which caused my hike to turn into a brisk walk, and eventually into a jog.. So a fourty minute hike turned into a twenty minute run back to the car. I was still proud of myself though, because most of the time I wouldn't even set foot on a hiking trail.
We had to be up for 5 the next morning, so once I had a delicious dozen buffalo wings at the restaurant, and showered in the public camp bathrooms (</3) it was lights out for me. The bathrooms weren't so bad, but they were a pretty far walk from the cabin which was burdenous in the middle of the night.
Five the next morning rolled around, and after quickly getting ready we went down to the dining place for a breakfast buffet. The day of any excursion at the resort you get an included breakfast, lunch, and dinner buffer, which was absolutely amazing and I'm pretty sure I gained at least ten pounds that day! Oh and, on the way down to breakfast, I had a HUGE daddy long legs crawl up my leg.. Those of you on the American CF-Live this year can probably imagine how I reacted to that..
We got on our rafting gear which consisted of a helmet, life jacket, and an oar thing, and then made our way onto a bus which marked the beginning of a half an hour TERRIFYING bus journey down the mountainside.
After a spiel from our guide that put the fear of god in me, we were off, and I was leading the boat! Our guide crashed us into a rock right off the get-go just to see how we would react, and because we almost fell out right away, I nearly started to cry. After a little while though I started getting use to it.. It was a healthy fear, and definitely a big rush! The river we were on was for age 14+ and was class 3, 4 and 5 rapids, so it wasn't too intense but it still had some really intense rapids thrown in there! We also did surfing, which is when you purposely catch yourself in a rapid and stay there and get all wet and nearly tip over, which caused a few screams .
Soon enough it was time for lunch, which was an amazing buffet of salads, burgers, dessert, fruits, etc, all next to a class 5 rapid, so we got to see all the other rafts get bumped around as we ate!
After lunch, we had about three or four hours left of the trip, so enjoy the pics:
Our amazing guide Derek, who we tipped like almost $50 because he was so awesome <3
The one thing I didn't do was the jump rock, because I wasn't about to die or get stuck in an undercut We did get to swim during some of the breaks between rapids, and one of the guys in our raft was a badass and did a backflip.
The views in the gorge were beautiful, and there's also the world's second biggest bridge.
After the trip was done, we got free beer and pop, which I had to have the lemonade because I'm not 21 </3 We had another terrifying bus trip back to the resort, took showers, and then headed back to the tent to meet with out guides and watch the videos of us rafting! For those of you who care and want to see it, voila:
My boat is the one with the guide in all beige.. I'm on the front on the left, and then halfway through the video I'm in the left middle.
After watching our video, we had an amazing dinner buffet where I pigged out once again. Then, we had a bonfire where I had a few roasted marshmallows, even though they are disgusting, but they're fun to cook. Then, I got psyched out by all the bugs and went to bed .
The next day we left for home pretty early! Overall, I had a really great time and it was something completely different to what I usually do, so I enjoyed it. I definitely want to do the rafting again but on a more advanced river, so maybe in the fall I'll go back and do the lower gauley, which is the next step up! But first I think I'll use my pool to my advantage and practice swimming .
The end.
We left on Sunday, which was mostly just for driving purposes because it was an eight hour drive and we wanted the full two days at the resort. So, we just stayed at a hotel with a pool and a hot tub, which we took advantage of before passing out really early. I was a bit concerned as I practiced my swimming skills in the pool and realized they're completely non-existent!
The next day we headed out around 8:30am and made a stop at Wal-Mart along the way. This was when I realized that West Virginia has possibly the fattest population of any state I've ever seen, besides maybe Missouri. We just grabbed some pop and some subs, which was jokes because I vowed like, never to eat a sub for a very long time after our abundance of Subway on the live a few weeks ago! We got the resort at about ten, but the weather was kind of chilly and it looked like rain was on the way, so we just hung around since check-in wasn't until two (actually four, but my dad lied and said I didn't feel good so we could get in earlier, ha). My dad decided he was bored of waiting, so he played on the zip line by himself like a big kid, until he basically forced me to join him, so I did!
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbqiwbD6H4A&feature=youtu.be[/youtube]
Sadly, I lost my bathing suit shorts on my way down, but they didn't come completely off so that was a good thing! It started storming, so we ate some lunch and eventually went back into the lake once the storm subsided. The weather let up and it ended up being a nice, sunny day.
The slide and the "blob" were one time things for me. I have a fear of going underwater, and both caused that so I did them once and decided never again
. I fell off the blob once and then sucked up a bunch of water the one time I did it successfully, and my dad dislocated his elbow, so we steered clear . I also sat around on the beach for a bit.
When we were done playing on all the childish toys and had our fill on the zip-line, we checked into our cabin.
We found out there were a lot of hiking trails that give a great view of the gorge, so equipped in my hiking gear which consisted of my black purse, pink overalls, and yellow sandals (ha, such a girl), we made our way there. First, we went to the visitor's centre, which had a patio on the back that gave a nice view.
At first, the hiking was nice and smooth and flat, but eventually it started going uphill. Things started going downhill for me though once I saw a spider, and once we had to run through an area where there was a bee's nest!
We made it to the outlook after about fourty minutes, which was beautiful!
They have rappelling trips down this piece of rock, which I think would be terrifying but awesome!
This was the river I was going to be rafting on the next day!
I even saw a gecko!
To put things into perspective, I started seeing a bit more wildlife on the way back (and by wildlife, I mean spiders), which caused my hike to turn into a brisk walk, and eventually into a jog.. So a fourty minute hike turned into a twenty minute run back to the car. I was still proud of myself though, because most of the time I wouldn't even set foot on a hiking trail.
We had to be up for 5 the next morning, so once I had a delicious dozen buffalo wings at the restaurant, and showered in the public camp bathrooms (</3) it was lights out for me. The bathrooms weren't so bad, but they were a pretty far walk from the cabin which was burdenous in the middle of the night.
Five the next morning rolled around, and after quickly getting ready we went down to the dining place for a breakfast buffet. The day of any excursion at the resort you get an included breakfast, lunch, and dinner buffer, which was absolutely amazing and I'm pretty sure I gained at least ten pounds that day! Oh and, on the way down to breakfast, I had a HUGE daddy long legs crawl up my leg.. Those of you on the American CF-Live this year can probably imagine how I reacted to that..
We got on our rafting gear which consisted of a helmet, life jacket, and an oar thing, and then made our way onto a bus which marked the beginning of a half an hour TERRIFYING bus journey down the mountainside.
After a spiel from our guide that put the fear of god in me, we were off, and I was leading the boat! Our guide crashed us into a rock right off the get-go just to see how we would react, and because we almost fell out right away, I nearly started to cry. After a little while though I started getting use to it.. It was a healthy fear, and definitely a big rush! The river we were on was for age 14+ and was class 3, 4 and 5 rapids, so it wasn't too intense but it still had some really intense rapids thrown in there! We also did surfing, which is when you purposely catch yourself in a rapid and stay there and get all wet and nearly tip over, which caused a few screams
. Soon enough it was time for lunch, which was an amazing buffet of salads, burgers, dessert, fruits, etc, all next to a class 5 rapid, so we got to see all the other rafts get bumped around as we ate!
After lunch, we had about three or four hours left of the trip, so enjoy the pics:
Our amazing guide Derek, who we tipped like almost $50 because he was so awesome <3
The one thing I didn't do was the jump rock, because I wasn't about to die or get stuck in an undercut
We did get to swim during some of the breaks between rapids, and one of the guys in our raft was a badass and did a backflip.
The views in the gorge were beautiful, and there's also the world's second biggest bridge.
After the trip was done, we got free beer and pop, which I had to have the lemonade because I'm not 21 </3 We had another terrifying bus trip back to the resort, took showers, and then headed back to the tent to meet with out guides and watch the videos of us rafting! For those of you who care and want to see it, voila:
My boat is the one with the guide in all beige.. I'm on the front on the left, and then halfway through the video I'm in the left middle.
After watching our video, we had an amazing dinner buffet where I pigged out once again. Then, we had a bonfire where I had a few roasted marshmallows, even though they are disgusting, but they're fun to cook. Then, I got psyched out by all the bugs and went to bed
.The next day we left for home pretty early! Overall, I had a really great time and it was something completely different to what I usually do, so I enjoyed it. I definitely want to do the rafting again but on a more advanced river, so maybe in the fall I'll go back and do the lower gauley, which is the next step up! But first I think I'll use my pool to my advantage and practice swimming
.The end.
And I know, I'm way too much of a girl but when it comes down to it I really do like being in nature, I just wish I wasn't so scared of spiders. I felt a bit stupid when we ran into other people hiking who had intense hiking gear on, meanwhile I was decked out in my overalls and purse