2006 10-14 West Virginia
When I first met Szymon 3 years ago he mentioned that one of the main things he wanted to do in America was go White Water Rafting. I've never really thought much of rafting one way or another, but it sounded like it could be a lot of fun. In 2005 Szymon and I went rafting on the James River in Richmond. It was a neat experience but we were both pretty dissapointed in the lack of intensity. They basically made it sound like it was really dangerous, but the rapids ended up being pretty small and somewhat boring. Definitely not as dangerous as we were hoping it would be :-)
As soon as Szymon found out he was able to come back to the US again this year, the only thing he talked about all summer was rafting in West Virginia. After doing some research we found that West Virginia had some great rafting experiences during the fall season. There's a dam along the Gauley river in the southern part of the state that is released from September through October. This controlled release from the dam makes the Gauley river run wild, and for 6 weeks it's some of the best white water on the East Coast. On October 14 we loaded up the Jeep and headed down 64 into West Virginia to go rafting on Sunday.
I was hoping the leaves would be in full color in the mountains, but unfortunately it was still too early. I can't complain because the scenery was spectacular either way. We stopped in several random places during the drive that looked interesting and we got some decent pictures. We stayed in Fayetteville WV Saturday night, and woke up to 29 degree temperatures, scraped ice of the windows, then went rafting for the afternoon. I didn't bring my camera on the boat for obvious reasons, so we didn't get any rafting pictures but the scenery along the river was beautiful and the rapids were huge. They had a camera crew filming us and taking pictures, but $18 was too much for 1 photo of us getting thrown around in a plastic boat with 7 other people we didn't know. So for that part of the trip we only have memories. But here are the photos from the rest...
Read MoreAs soon as Szymon found out he was able to come back to the US again this year, the only thing he talked about all summer was rafting in West Virginia. After doing some research we found that West Virginia had some great rafting experiences during the fall season. There's a dam along the Gauley river in the southern part of the state that is released from September through October. This controlled release from the dam makes the Gauley river run wild, and for 6 weeks it's some of the best white water on the East Coast. On October 14 we loaded up the Jeep and headed down 64 into West Virginia to go rafting on Sunday.
I was hoping the leaves would be in full color in the mountains, but unfortunately it was still too early. I can't complain because the scenery was spectacular either way. We stopped in several random places during the drive that looked interesting and we got some decent pictures. We stayed in Fayetteville WV Saturday night, and woke up to 29 degree temperatures, scraped ice of the windows, then went rafting for the afternoon. I didn't bring my camera on the boat for obvious reasons, so we didn't get any rafting pictures but the scenery along the river was beautiful and the rapids were huge. They had a camera crew filming us and taking pictures, but $18 was too much for 1 photo of us getting thrown around in a plastic boat with 7 other people we didn't know. So for that part of the trip we only have memories. But here are the photos from the rest...
