A new adventure

Yesterday, I leaped into a new adventure and absolutely fell in love with river tubing! Those who know me well know that I hate the summer heat and am usually stuck inside hugging the air conditioning vent. Not this time. On one of the hottest days of the year so far (98*), I ventured outside to the river with my honey tagging along.

Bryan and I went to Adventure Carolina (www.adventurecarolina.com) on State Street in Cayce, SC to rent our tubes, PFDs, and paddle. Next time we will get two paddles, one each. We then followed the AC shuttle van to Granby Park on the Columbia side of the Congaree River, where we parked Bryan's truck and boarded the shuttle. We were then taken to the banks of the Saluda River at Riverbanks Zoo.

Getting my still rather large rear-end and not flexible body into that tube and headed down the river was a challenge. I followed the three other people who had come in the shuttle with us to the bank, not knowing that Bryan had chosen to go in a different direction. I thought he was behind me. I stepped into the freezing cold water (the data for the USGS gage near Columbia shows the temp as 54* at 1100 hrs yesterday) and almost passed out. OMG was it cold!!! All the shivering I was doing was making it a bit difficult to navigate my frozen feet over the rocks. My left foot slipped in between two rocks and I fell into the water, flipping the tube over my head. Yes, it was hilarious. Thank God Bryan didn't see it. Unknown to me until later in the day, I cut my big toe on those rocks. I eventually got into the tube, and then I noticed Bryan already floating down the river. How the hell did that happen?? I was not very happy with this; I figured I'd be floating down the river by myself, as he was already well on his way. Fortunately, we were able to paddle to each other with a great deal of work. At that point, we tethered ourselves together with rope tied to the tubes.

I had been a bit apprehensive about going over the rapids, but in a way was excited about it, too. I had this same type of anxiety about parasailing last year and ended up loving it! As we approached the first rapids, I could hear the water rushing over the rocks. Bryan and I untethered ourselves and he advised me to lift myself up so I wouldn't be hit in the rear by the rocks. And over the rapids we went!! Oh man, that was fun! There were several spots that you dipped quite a bit and got splashed (water's still cold!), but I never felt like I was going to fall out or get tipped over. When we got past the rapids, I wanted to do it again! In fact, we watched two kayakers get out and walk back up the river just so they could do that. Next time, we will, too. There were two more smaller rapids, and they were fun, too, but the first ones were the best.

We saw a few houses built high on the banks. One house had a walkway down to a dock on the river. The others had no way to get to the water. What's the point in living on the water if you can't get to it? And much to my disappointment, one house had a rock overlook which apparently they sat on and threw their trash down the bank. There were bottles, cans, just trash, a lot of it, floating in the water caught in the brush and all over the lower bank. Disgusting. Have respect for the world in which you live people!!

At the confluence of the Saluda and Broad Rivers, where the Congaree River starts, the water warmed up considerably. I can't find temperature data (the USGS gages in the Congaree apparently don't record temp), but it was a good 20* warmer. The colder water ran below but would swirl to the top as you went over the larger rocks. It was nice.

One thing we saw was the Spider Lillies. The rare spider lily is a bulbous breed related to the amaryllis. Its name, the "Rocky Shoals Spider Lily," comes from its preferred habitat—rivers in which fast-moving, well-oxygenated water passes over rocks. Such environments are found in the Saluda and the Broad Rivers near the convergence that forms the Congaree River. Though we flowed quickly past them and saw them from a distance, they were quite beautiful. We also saw tons of turtles, some small, many LARGE, and a couple herons.

The trip which we took was 2.8 miles long and took us 4 hours. It didn't seem like near that long to me. I wanted to go get back in the water and go again. But Bryan worked very hard paddling us around the obstructions and getting us to the left side of the river where we needed to be to get out. I knew he was tired. And hot. I really stayed pretty cool with most of my body staying in the water. We were only 2 of 40 or more people that we could see out enjoying the outdoors in the coolest way possible. I'm ready to go again!!

My sunburned feet...the only thing that got burned.