Heading More East

Karyn and I decided to mark one thing off the ol' bucket list and head to Johnson City Tennessee for the night to hang with Elizabeth. She has an inviting home that is super comfy cozy. Elizabeth moved to Johnson City about a year and a half ago and she was dying to show us the Appalachian Mountain ways. Here, that is pronounced Apa-latch-in, rather than Apa-laysh-an. If ya aint sayin it right, then they done know yer not from 'round here (can you hear the banjos playing in the background?)

Karyn offered to drive. She loves driving her jeep, which works great for me because I love riding in it. Especially with the top down. Which we did almost the whole time we were there, even when maybe we shouldn't have...

We headed to one of Ebeth's favorite hole in the wall 'Scratch' for dinner.  We ordered a "trust" pizza, where one trusts the staff puts whatever they want on it. A true culinary adventure.

Our pizza was delicious! Lots of fresh veggies, on a whole grain crust. The trust was well worth it. I even enjoyed the mandarin oranges!

After dinner before we headed to see 'The Heat,' (which is one of the funniest movies I have seen in a long time) we decided to hit up Target for some clearance shopping and heard a thunder storm rumble as we checked out, so we ran out to the jeep to drive around and watch the lightning. Rainstorms are a tangible experience in the jeep, the soft top let's us hear the rain so loudly and we could even feel the rain when we put our hands up to it. 

The next day we headed out for our river adventure. 

Remember earlier when I said we were in the jeep with the top down the whole time, even when we shouldn't have? Well, that time happened on the way to the river. The rain got us ready for the rapids!

Then the storm stopped, and, Here Comes The Sun!

River people are my kind of people.  They live for adventure and can't wait to share their passion with you.  This little place has had over 2,000 Appalachian Trail hikers stay in its hostel so far this summer. Thanks 'Uncle Johnny' for the fun adventure!

 

We had fun with the $12.99 splurge of a water proof camera. We were through the entire roll of film  with in the first 30 minutes of our 3.5 hour long trip. It's amazing how quickly we go through pictures now in the digital age. We kept making the "do you want to see it?" joke after each shot. Some things it wasn't able to capture were; the tree that almost took our life that was down in the middle of the river, the one that Karyn flipped head first into and Elizabeth's back got chewed up on. It missed the beach that we floated past and didn't realize it was the one we were supposed to exit the river at. It missed the kind man with a watch, fishing, who told us it was 5:20 pm and that Cherokee Adventure (our exit spot) was about a mile upstream (not joking). It missed the ride of the three us us and our tubes piled in the bed of his truck for about 15 minutes as he kindly drove us to our pick up spot.

 

 Here is the part of the day that it began to rain, which was fun for a minute until it started to pour and we were getting pelted with rain as we were navigating a rapid! We had a great makeshift umbrella as we took a small break.

It was one of those days that we will always remember. You know the kind, where so many things could have gone so wrong and somehow didn't. 

We survived the river,

We were shown the kindness of strangers,

And most of all, we strengthened friendships!

I have a feeling that I will have a lot of adventures like this when I am in Africa :)