NOC

George, Rachel, Natalie, and I went up on Thursday and Friday to see Ryan at the Nantahala Outdoor Center near Bryson City, NC. We drove on Thursday afternoon - George demonstrated his Nascar skills on the windy roads of NC while distracting us with karaoke - my favorite being "Bleeding Love". After arriving at NOC, Ryan took us through some back roads to a swimming hole he had heard about - it was amazing...the swimming hole had a waterfall that flowed into it and was surrounded by rock formations. We followed Ryan onto a rock that was about 20 feet high and after watching Ryan jump off several times, George and I summoned up enough courage and prayers to try it ourselves. We drove back to NOC and had dinner on a restaurant overlooking the Nantahala River. We hung out at the river before going back to the Inn for the painful experience of watching Sex and the City on TV. On Friday, Ryan woke up early to get to a staff meeting while we went to the restaurant on the river for breakfast (the french toast was good but not as good as Mamma Shah's!) At NOC, we watched a comforting instructional video about how not to die on the river, and Ryan got us our gear. We took an NOC bus to the launch point, and Ryan led us on a raft for 2 hrs down the river. Along the way, even I was impressed by the mountains and the scenery and only talked about putting up a hotel once. Also, George was in a mutinous mood and briefly took over as captain. Ryan is a really good guide and made sure we got wet every now and then. He showed us some interesting old Indian caves and rescued a capsized boat's paddle. We made it down Nantahala Falls in one piece. As we went down the falls, George and I "rode the bull" - we held on for dear life to a rope Ryan tied to the front of the raft. After lunch at the pizza and barbecue shacks, Ryan got us individual inflatables called duckies. We felt professional carrying the duckies and paddles to a dropoff point before the falls. We each went down the falls three times with Ryan waiting for us at the bottom as our rescuer. Rachel had the gutsiest run as she fought through rocks and used some fancy paddling to make it down in one piece. We had an incredible time, and we wanted to give Ryan a huge shoutout - he took care of us really well and made sure we had fun. Thank you Ryan. I put our pictures up on Facebook and you can watch video of us going down the falls at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fp4jDnTR4h8. Hope everyone's summer is going well - love and peace to all.