DC was pretty empty this Labor Day weekend. Apparently there was supposed to be a hurricane, or something, so everyone fled, though I'm not sure as to where. A few of my friends and I decided to drive to West Virginia to float in tubes in Harpers Ferry, where the Shenandoah and the Potomac meet to make beautiful things happen. After an hour of listening to "Country Road" by John Denver on repeat to get us pumped up, we arrived. We had two choices, flatwater tubing, a lazy river-esque experience, or whitewater tubing, which they assured us was actually rather difficult, especially with the headwind rolling in to blow us off course into dangerous and shallow waters, and not at all the relaxing river ride we'd anticipated. But of course we've never been ones to listen to naysayers so we packed our cooler full of Modelo's and hit the open rapids.
The beginning, I'll admit, was pretty difficult. They dropped us off on the left side of the river, and then informed us we had to "aggressively paddle" our little selves against the current to the other side of the (rather wide, mind you) Potomac River.
Shortly after reaching the other side we hit a rocky patch and encountered our first rapids. They were small, only Class I and II (and for one brief and shining moment Class III!), but don't underestimate the pure thrill of conquering Class II rapids in a tiny tube.
Four hours of brief adrenaline thrills and lulls of lazy river lounging bliss later, we "aggressively paddled" our way back over to the left side of the river to the pick up point and left the Wild and Wonderful West Virginia river behind. Exhausted and half-starved, we scoured Harpers Ferry for barbecue (isn't that what you eat in West Virginia?) and finally found a place with pulled pork sandwiches and curly fries for $16. Refreshed from nature and packing several pecks of peaches from a fruit stand, we returned to the city with the rest of the masses, trying not to think of the "Terrible Traffic Tuesday" we would face in the morning.
In conclusion, whitewater tubing is something I recommend for everyone in the entire world. Because if everyone went whitewater tubing, I'm pretty sure there'd be a lot less war, and a lot more good times.
2 comments:
that. looks. amazing. only way i see that experience getting better...? joose.
i did that with truck inner-tubes in boulder, colorado once with ryan moore. i still have a scar on my shin from it getting blasted into a rock. and ryan got pinned up against a boulder for a brief, Xtremely scary moment.
i like the phrase peck of peaches.
I pushed the 4 LOKO pretty hard in the gas station but no one else was into it and if I've learned anything in my short life it's never ride the LOKO-motive alone
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