Girls of '83 gather at Lori's House

Six graduates of NorthWood High School gathered at Lori's house in Texas this summer.

The temperatures soared above 100 degrees but the girls stayed cool in the pool and the shopping malls.



Jackie didn't talk much about the trip but the pictures of Lori's ranch looked vaguely familiar to me.

Inflatable Kayaks

While Jackie was making arrangements for rafting the week before we left, she was confident that Adam and I would like to kayak down the river.

Seeing how cold my feet were on Monday, I couldn't imagine how miserable it would be spending a few hours with the bottom half of my body immersed. On Tuesday night, I had several conversations with the kids trying to convince them that we should really do another trip on a different Tsali trail instead of kayaking.

Boy, was I wrong. I had no idea how comfortable a wet suit could be. Once equipped with the proper gear, Adam and I actually had to splash water onto our legs to cool them off as we drifted down the Nantahala in our Fast River inflatable "fun-yaks".

Jackie, Carmen and Becca all served as kayak chasers in the van. Adam and I could always pick them out on the shore for a couple of reasons. (1) Jackie's laugh is hard to stop and hard to miss. (2) Jackie couldn't figure out how to turn the flash off when taking pictures from the shaded shore.

Afternoons tubing down Deep Creek

After a morning of some sort of biking, hiking, horse back riding, running, rafting or other form of exercise, we enjoyed the 20 minute hike up deep creek and the 40 minute trip down.

I put this off, because I don't like getting wet and it seemed pretty passive, but it really was fun. However, the second afternoon that we went, I volunteered to be the photographer because it gave me a chance to run on the trails and climb up and down the river banks and rocks cautiously avoiding the snakes that Carmen always reminded us about.

Oddly enough, Carmen was the only one to see a snake the whole trip. It was here in Deep Creek and the black water snake was too close for her.

Adam thought the use of a stick for pushing off rocks would help him get down the creek faster. He really worked on some creative ways to ride his tube. This particular shot shows him going backward over a two foot falls. While waiting for the family to get to this spot, I saw many people injure themselves doing backrolls on rocks.

Riding, Riding and River's End

On Tuesday morning, we separated the family based on interests and ability.

Adam, Carmen and I rode the Thompson loop which is south of the Murphy branch and the Mouse branch trail. We rode it counter clock wise so most of the technical work was going up and most of the speed was coming down the old logging roads in the sun. It was a nice ride even though we had to race under time pressure.

Jackie and Becca rode horses at Nantahala Village while we mountain biked. We dropped them off, drove 15 minutes to the Tsali, rode the loop and packed up the bikes and 15 minutes back to Nantahala Village by noon.

After we picked up Jackie and Becca, we went to the River's End restuarant at Nantahala Outdoor Center for lunch. After lunch we sat briefly in the sun, resting and watching other people get cold and wet below us.