The link below is to some of our vacation pictures from the Smokies last week. We just love it up there. Our daughter was out riding horses around the mountains every other day, coming back all tired, smiley and smelling like horse sh--sweat. I didn't ride with her this year as it takes too much hot-tub time for my bad hip to recover.

My son wanted to white water kayak at the Ocoee olympic training center so I spent some time on the net sourcing what I thought was a good instructor as neither of us had done any white-water kayaking before--I was super worried about letting my son do this. I got a sore neck looking around to make sure he was OK most of the time--I should have been paying attention to my own circumstance, my son never dumped once--the instructor said "the kid is a natural".

We were near the end of the river and had two more rapids to run, both were class 4, one is called 'Diamond Cutter' for obvious reasons. To make a long story short--my son went through Diamond Cutter like a pro but I dumped on the first Hydraulic, the instructor's words kept running through my head--"whatever you do... don't swim Diamond-Cutter, if you dump, stay with your Kayak no matter what". So I did what they call a "Yard-Sale", you wipe-out and all your gear, kayak and clothing gets ripped off and strewn down-stream like a..... "yard-sale". I got pushed under and my leg got wedged between two rocks and I couldn't surface. I've got this giant purple bruise on the inside of my thigh and you can see the imprint from the grain of the rock. When I got freed up, the intstructor was surfing his kayak on the second hydraulic and he yelled "Grab the back!". I grabbed the hand-holds on the back of his kayak and hoisted my torso up and we rode out the rest of the rapid.

I've got some bruises on my limbs and thankfully nothing else. As the swelling dissipates, the pain increases and so does my sense of embarrassment having to listen to my 15yr old son tell me over and over how he did it all perfectly. We can't wait to do it again but next time I'm gettin me one of them 'hot-rod' kayaks the instructors use


http://www...ichaud.com/ace_ocoee.htm

None of this would ever happen if LJ wasn't a great 'tour planner', we'll need to send her on a vaction without us so she can enjoy a little

Awesome pictures! I'm so jealous.

No pictures of the yard sale? I'm glad you made it home safely!!

You're right Irish, that water is wayyy too cold... it kinda takes your breathe away when you fall in


Irish wrote:

QUOTE:

Looks like your son had a blast...:laugh:

That's why I decided to go kayaking with him. I often do stupid things and I just couldn't miss watching him experience it. It seems like only last week that LJ was makin me change his diapers. He used to giggle when he crapped his drawers--it's different now, he only crap's his drawers metaphorically but he still giggles alot... we just love him

He's 15 now and it'll only be a year or so before he starts ignoring us...

Just had to see it, ya know?

Fanstatic shots. Man o man are you guys brave to attempt that. Your son almost looks relaxed in som of the pictures, like he's done it all his life. amazing stuff! thanks for posting.