I asked for an adventure vacation

Action-Adventure Day 1

So, here we are in the beautiful mountains of North Carolina. Today, we went Canyoneering. Basically, it's repelling down canyons (today we repelled down a gorge), traversed through water and then rock climbed back up. Yep, that's me, climbing back up the gorge. I surprised even myself doing it well. A few times on the way up, I nervously laughed to myself: "Am I outta my freaking mind?"

After a three-mile hike and canyoneering, we came upon a gorgeous waterfall that absolutely rivaled any I saw along the Hana Highway in Maui. The only way to get to the basin of this waterfall is to rappel down a 70 ft cliff. Here's the 75-foot reward that was waiting:
If five hours of this wasn't enough, we then made our way down to the Green River for a two+hour kayak ride. The river had some good momentum, with nice little class II rapids. Enough to enable Maverick and I to have a good laugh if we got stuck in the middle of a rapid (the water was fairly shallow) but not too consuming that I couldn't just lay back in the canoe at times and let the current take me where it will.

A few spots were hairy and I got stuck on a some rocks. This photo is one of the rapids I rocked on! I cut my kayak perfectly around every protruding boulder and gained some decent speed. Afterward, I raised my paddle and let out a loud victory hoot!

By the time we were done, it was past 6pm. We had started our adventure at 9am; and we were completely exhausted but happy. This is Maverick & I at the end of the kayak trip. We were planning our exit to the closest Starbucks.


We're back in our hotel room now, eating room service and downing Motrin like Halloween candy. Tomorrow, we're back out at 8am for a full day of rock climbing. Hopefully, my muscles will make a full recovery. I have a feeling I'm going to sleep really well tonight. Goodnight.