West Virginia trip
I went down to West Virginia with Wendi, Ty, Kate, Erika, and kate's dog Wesley last weekend for some camping and white water rafting.
Holy shit, one of the best trips I've ever been on. Great company, great fun, great campsite, and great rafting!!!
This is everything we did the entire weekend: (pretty much)
Friday afternoon Ty picked me up and we met Kate at the King of Prussia mall. We packed all the shit into Ty's car, and me and wesley chilled in the backseat while we rocked out to some Paul Simon. He was super obedient, which was awesome, and we ended up accidentally taking a longer way down, but it was more scenic, which was cool. Overall, the trip down was 7 hrs and 20 min, but with the stops, it took about 8. The ride was beautiful, and it was a trip seeing other people's reactions to us at the stops b/c we DEFINITELY did not fit in.
We got to the campsite around 10:30, picked a spot that didn't have a lot of people around, and set up camp. We had 3 tents, 2 w/ people and one for stuff, which ended up being a lifesaver b/c we never would have fit everyone and all their shit in the tents.
We built a fire, drank some beers, and waited up for Erika and Wendi. They got in around 3:30 and we all went right to bed b/c it was really cold and we were all beat from the day.
On Sat we got up, ate at this place called Cathedral Cafe in town and got some AWESOME sandwiches. Holy shit, mine was the tastiest sandwich I ever ate. It was a really cute restaurant too. It was a Cosi kind of place, but not pretentious, had more personality, and better prices.
After breakfast/lunch, we decided to go hiking. We drove around for a while b/c directions in West Virginia are useless. They basically say, "go down this road, it will curve a little and then there will be a goat. Turn at the goat and look for a crooked tree...etc." USELESS. So we drove around a little and ended up running into a horseback riding group and asked them for directions.
ha, in a funny turn of events, we ended up talking to this gay boy that we named "Elliott" b/c, I dunno, we all agreed that looked like his name. He was young and kind of cute, but had bad teeth and sores all around his mouth.... yeah, I dunno, but we invited him to play volleyball w/ us b/c we needed a 6th person and he said he had to work and would come if he could. Unfortunately, he never showed so we couldn't play volleyball, but whatever.
We finally found a trail, hiked it for a while, then got way hot and decided to check out a waterfall we saw in a gorge off the side of the road. I'm not gonna lie, it was a bitch and a half to get down the side of this giant hill, but we somehow survived and managed to get changed into bathing suits w/o flashing anyone. Unfortunately, I screwed up big time and forgot to leave my camera at the car and it ended up falling in some water, but whatev, it's okay. It's not working right but I'll get it fixed.
Now that we were changed, we had to get over to the waterfall. We banded together and painfully walked through a stream and over rocks to get to the GD thing.
The water was FREEZING, but it felt good b/c it was hot as hell. We waded in the water and then made it over to the waterfall and took some great pictures. (thanks erika!) Ha, there was a funny picture of me and ty that spawned the movie title and soon-to-be-poster "dude, where's my elliott?" then Erika got in and splashed around and we took some more pictures. We were cold and went back to the campsite to get changed and eat.
Upon arriving at the site, we noticed a few more tents in our area. Now, when we set up camp, there was a tent across a little bridge and a couple tents wayyyy in the back of us and we were in the middle of an open area. When we got back, there were TEN, yeah, count 'em, 10 new tents behind us. It turns out there was a very large Asian family that came to raft and they totally took over our campsite. ha, it actually wasn't as bad as we thought it would be. They didn't make too much noise and we got a kick out of wesley chasing all the people. ha, one of the little kids even tripped over his cord and it was hilarious. (ha, right ty? remember in the tent...) They were nice though and gave us some spoons when we needed them :-)
After getting back, me and ty chilled at the campsite while kate, wendi, and erika went food shopping. we got some hotdogs and corn and stuff and grilled. it was totally awesome and the food was delicious.
Later on, I was totally pooped from the day, so I decided to lay down to take a nap, and in the meantime, everyone went crazy. I was awoken to wendi jumping in my tent with our fire poking stick while ty takes a picture of her attacking me. Apparently, they put on "face paint" (aka. ashes from the poking stick) on their face and did crazy things. ha, then they christened me and I got some face paint and we checked out the volleyball tournament.
We're just sitting on some grass watching a game, when it turns out some people from the asian family had a team and it was their turn to play. Well, being West Virginia, I guess they don't really understand political correctness, b/c the woman at the tournament yells, ::thick southern accent:: "Hey Bill, tell them chinese people that it's their turn!" ha, we corrected the lady and brought a little class fayetteville, wv!
Then Ty, Kate, and Wendi went to "check out" the bar, or so they said. Three hours later Erika and I figured out that they weren't coming back, so we decided to make some banana boats.... MMMMMM!!! [ Basically, you cut open a banana, mash it up, put choc chips and marshmallows and whatever else your heart desires (in our case, peanut butter) and then roll it up and throw it on the grill for a while.] omg, soooo good!!! Then erika went to bed and everyone came back WASTED^^. I don't think I've ever seen Ty so drunk and wendi was drunk and trying to convince me to dance barefoot with her at the bar. haha, despite her efforts, they went back to the bar and I went to sleep.
Sunday we got up early and went to the Cathedral Cafe for their famous breakfast burritos. Unfortunately, the wait staff had taken a handful of tranquilizers before going into work so the service was awful and it took over an hour to get breakfast food. however, that burrito was MIGHTY good (thanks kate!), but we accidentally gave the waitress a big tip due lack of communication upon leaving.
After breakfast we went horseback riding. The place was basically a shack with a toilet in it, but the people were nice. We got our horses, I had Midnight, and we started on our way. I have to say, the walking trails were NOT what I expected at all. Now, I haven't ridden a horse since 5th grade camp and that must have been bullshit, b/c we were hitting some brokeback mountain shit on this trail. We started out going down this huge muddy, rocky hill that our horses would slip on. Me and Ty had the best horses, but I think everyone elses' had a big plate of crazy for breakfast, b/c they were doing some off the wall shit. Kate's horse walked her in the woods a couple of times for no reason, Erika's horse ate ferns every 3 feet, and wendi's horse almost threw her off a cliff and did other crazy shit. We managed to survive the horseback riding, but none of us could walk ride the next 2 days.
After horseback riding we tried breaking into this other campsite Ace to use their cool water facilities, but were unsuccessful. I think after that we just gave up and took funny pictures of the town as we drove home. We didn't want to get too rowdy b/c we had rafting early Monday, so we just had a few beers and hung out. Everyone waded in the creek near our campsite just to cool off b/c it was so goddamn hot. Sunday we grilled, ate more banana boats, and went to bed early.
Monday. wow, the big day. We got up ass early to get dressed and go to the office thing before our trip. We were the 8:30am group on the lower new river. We signed all our release forms saying we won't sue the company if we die or get hurt and then watched a video on safety. Then got our equipment and packed into a bus to drive to the river.
Our guide was this awesome guy Craig who was not what I expected at all. I dunno what I expected as far as guides go, but everyone who worked there seemed somewhat young and awesome. It was the 5 of us and these 2 older indian couples. They were business people from NY and DC and they were useless. I dont think they had a clue what they were getting into, b/c the one guy wore a $5,000 watch rafting!!! (wtf??)
The rafting was also not what I expected. It was 14 miles down a river and there weren't any rapids in the beginning, so we got to swim in the river and stuff, which was cool. At first it was the 5 of us in the front, and the other 4 and craig in the back. The river was in the middle of this gorge and it was beautiful scenery everywhere. It was also interesting to hear about all the old abandoned towns in the mountains.
We hit a few rapids and then we ate lunch. Luckily, during the one rapid, I totally almost fell out but wendi grabbed me and pulled me back in. (go wendi!). We ate lunch and the other people asked if they could be in front of the raft after lunch so we let them.
Awwww boyyyy did they SUCK. First of all, they didn't listen at all and they were in the most important positions on the raft. The girls would giggle all the time and the guys would talk while the guide was giving very important instructions. Like, gee, I dunno, what to do if you fall in a level 5 rapid. Information you want to hear. Well, they didn't listen at all and the one guy was the first person to fall off the raft. It was pretty traumatizing b/c it was a really big rapid and he just fell in and got sucked into the middle of it and down the river. Of course, his g/f we freaking out and in a fetal position in the middle of the raft and the other couple was equally as useless. We managed to get out of it and pick the guy up.
The next rapid was one called the meat grinder. (err, market according to wendi). Craig said it's the rapid with the highest fatality rate so--don't fall out. We got right in the middle of the rapid and wendi fell out. luckily, I saw it happen and managed to grab her and the guide pulled her in before she got pulled away. kate also fell out at one point too, but she held onto the boat and we pulled her in.
In addition to swimming in the river, we got to swim down some rapids too, which is not what I expected. That was really awesome, expect the time Ty busted his ass to go the wrong way around a rock and almost drowned!!
We somehow made it thru the rest of the river without anymore casualities and went back to the campsite. We had some time to chill and then went to the bar at the campground to watch the video that was filmed of the river. They gave us some drink tickets (yes!) and we watched the film.
They didn't film it at any good parts for us, but it was hilarious seeing the 4 people in front not doing anything EVERYTIME they were on film. i'm not even lying, it's hilarious. We'll be going thru a huge rapid and you would see them either not paddling, or holding on and not helping AT ALL!!! what the hell?!!?
Then we ran into craig there and a bunch of us talked to him and we gave him his tip and thanked him for the awesome ride. We went and ate dinner and during dinner it started pouring rain. Wendi and Erika kept their candyasses at the restaurant and ate dessert while me, ty and kate ran around putting shit away and covering the tents. We got back and they were thankful they didn't come b/c "it looked really bad out there. " (lol, 'did you get my bikini? did you guys get my make up case?')
Dinner was done after that since we were soaking wet, but fortunately, the rain stopped a few minutes later and we hit up the bar. We used up a few more drink tickets and ran into Craig again. We talked to him a whole bunch and then invited him back at the campsite to hang some more. We talked to him about the river and he agreed that the 2 couples totally blew and he was tempted to flip them several times throughout the trip.
We all fell in love with craig, he was really awesome and totally hilarious. he told us about fayetteville and rafting and what the business is like and stuff like that. He told some funny stories and even offered to give us a free copy of the video. (yeahhhh! now let's hope he remembers....)
Monday night we chilled, then got up early tuesday, packed, and left. The ride back was cool but we were all wicked tired and took turns napping. Well, kate and ty did, I mostly napped the whole ride. heh.
Overall: EXCELLENT trip! Not one complaint and I wouldn't change anything. Craig was talking about us going back in sept to run the lower gauley and I'm totally all about it. (Let's do it, guys!!!) There's also a whole bunch of cool hiking trails craig and kate talked about that I really want to check out in sept.
Side note: fayetteville was definitely gayer than I expected. There were a couple mo's working at the campground and we saw a few in town. We even had a secret gay couple with a fag hag stay near us (well, at least that's the conspiracy I'm sticking to). We definitely didn't totally fit in, but people were cool to us when we talked to them, which I wasn't completely expecting.
Here are some quotes/memories from the trip I'll point out. (I'll prob repeat most of wendi's if you read hers) :
-Elliott ("wait, do you know elliott? his dad works here.")
-"Hey, wanna play volleyball tonight?"
-Minden.
-Minden's bar.
-All the shit on people lawns and in their houses.
-"Do you guys have a crush on craig or something?"
"no!!! he's our raft guide..."
-Erika's tabs on everyone's bathroom activity.
-Wendi's and Erika's gas... the entire weekend.
-War paint.
-Wesley. ha. awesome dog.
-banana boats (w/ peanut butter!)
-the cock and balls corn on the cob
-"Aw man, they moved in that cabin?? I poop back there!"
-the fake sylvia browne questions
-the meat market
-psycho-analyzing craig and elliott
-"You should wait 5 minutes before putting that on her face"
-the volleyball tournament
-the giant asian family behind us.
-asking the indians for some stuff and having it blow up horribly; only to have it repaired in the morning
-haha, putting on my bathing suit COMPLETELY wrong and not realizing it until the end of the day
-wendi's leg on mine then sleeping
-"come on, you can dance barefoot!"
-ty and that rapid... lol, I can't laugh enough about it
-driving down and the mc donalds... eek.
-wesley humping alll niggghhhtt longgggg
-dude, where's my elliott and erika's movie plot
-the dude wheres my elliott review pictures
-the weird branch hiking (I have it on video!)
...and a million other things I can't think of right now. I'll add to the list as I think.
Holy shit, one of the best trips I've ever been on. Great company, great fun, great campsite, and great rafting!!!
This is everything we did the entire weekend: (pretty much)
Friday afternoon Ty picked me up and we met Kate at the King of Prussia mall. We packed all the shit into Ty's car, and me and wesley chilled in the backseat while we rocked out to some Paul Simon. He was super obedient, which was awesome, and we ended up accidentally taking a longer way down, but it was more scenic, which was cool. Overall, the trip down was 7 hrs and 20 min, but with the stops, it took about 8. The ride was beautiful, and it was a trip seeing other people's reactions to us at the stops b/c we DEFINITELY did not fit in.
We got to the campsite around 10:30, picked a spot that didn't have a lot of people around, and set up camp. We had 3 tents, 2 w/ people and one for stuff, which ended up being a lifesaver b/c we never would have fit everyone and all their shit in the tents.
We built a fire, drank some beers, and waited up for Erika and Wendi. They got in around 3:30 and we all went right to bed b/c it was really cold and we were all beat from the day.
On Sat we got up, ate at this place called Cathedral Cafe in town and got some AWESOME sandwiches. Holy shit, mine was the tastiest sandwich I ever ate. It was a really cute restaurant too. It was a Cosi kind of place, but not pretentious, had more personality, and better prices.
After breakfast/lunch, we decided to go hiking. We drove around for a while b/c directions in West Virginia are useless. They basically say, "go down this road, it will curve a little and then there will be a goat. Turn at the goat and look for a crooked tree...etc." USELESS. So we drove around a little and ended up running into a horseback riding group and asked them for directions.
ha, in a funny turn of events, we ended up talking to this gay boy that we named "Elliott" b/c, I dunno, we all agreed that looked like his name. He was young and kind of cute, but had bad teeth and sores all around his mouth.... yeah, I dunno, but we invited him to play volleyball w/ us b/c we needed a 6th person and he said he had to work and would come if he could. Unfortunately, he never showed so we couldn't play volleyball, but whatever.
We finally found a trail, hiked it for a while, then got way hot and decided to check out a waterfall we saw in a gorge off the side of the road. I'm not gonna lie, it was a bitch and a half to get down the side of this giant hill, but we somehow survived and managed to get changed into bathing suits w/o flashing anyone. Unfortunately, I screwed up big time and forgot to leave my camera at the car and it ended up falling in some water, but whatev, it's okay. It's not working right but I'll get it fixed.
Now that we were changed, we had to get over to the waterfall. We banded together and painfully walked through a stream and over rocks to get to the GD thing.
The water was FREEZING, but it felt good b/c it was hot as hell. We waded in the water and then made it over to the waterfall and took some great pictures. (thanks erika!) Ha, there was a funny picture of me and ty that spawned the movie title and soon-to-be-poster "dude, where's my elliott?" then Erika got in and splashed around and we took some more pictures. We were cold and went back to the campsite to get changed and eat.
Upon arriving at the site, we noticed a few more tents in our area. Now, when we set up camp, there was a tent across a little bridge and a couple tents wayyyy in the back of us and we were in the middle of an open area. When we got back, there were TEN, yeah, count 'em, 10 new tents behind us. It turns out there was a very large Asian family that came to raft and they totally took over our campsite. ha, it actually wasn't as bad as we thought it would be. They didn't make too much noise and we got a kick out of wesley chasing all the people. ha, one of the little kids even tripped over his cord and it was hilarious. (ha, right ty? remember in the tent...) They were nice though and gave us some spoons when we needed them :-)
After getting back, me and ty chilled at the campsite while kate, wendi, and erika went food shopping. we got some hotdogs and corn and stuff and grilled. it was totally awesome and the food was delicious.
Later on, I was totally pooped from the day, so I decided to lay down to take a nap, and in the meantime, everyone went crazy. I was awoken to wendi jumping in my tent with our fire poking stick while ty takes a picture of her attacking me. Apparently, they put on "face paint" (aka. ashes from the poking stick) on their face and did crazy things. ha, then they christened me and I got some face paint and we checked out the volleyball tournament.
We're just sitting on some grass watching a game, when it turns out some people from the asian family had a team and it was their turn to play. Well, being West Virginia, I guess they don't really understand political correctness, b/c the woman at the tournament yells, ::thick southern accent:: "Hey Bill, tell them chinese people that it's their turn!" ha, we corrected the lady and brought a little class fayetteville, wv!
Then Ty, Kate, and Wendi went to "check out" the bar, or so they said. Three hours later Erika and I figured out that they weren't coming back, so we decided to make some banana boats.... MMMMMM!!! [ Basically, you cut open a banana, mash it up, put choc chips and marshmallows and whatever else your heart desires (in our case, peanut butter) and then roll it up and throw it on the grill for a while.] omg, soooo good!!! Then erika went to bed and everyone came back WASTED^^. I don't think I've ever seen Ty so drunk and wendi was drunk and trying to convince me to dance barefoot with her at the bar. haha, despite her efforts, they went back to the bar and I went to sleep.
Sunday we got up early and went to the Cathedral Cafe for their famous breakfast burritos. Unfortunately, the wait staff had taken a handful of tranquilizers before going into work so the service was awful and it took over an hour to get breakfast food. however, that burrito was MIGHTY good (thanks kate!), but we accidentally gave the waitress a big tip due lack of communication upon leaving.
After breakfast we went horseback riding. The place was basically a shack with a toilet in it, but the people were nice. We got our horses, I had Midnight, and we started on our way. I have to say, the walking trails were NOT what I expected at all. Now, I haven't ridden a horse since 5th grade camp and that must have been bullshit, b/c we were hitting some brokeback mountain shit on this trail. We started out going down this huge muddy, rocky hill that our horses would slip on. Me and Ty had the best horses, but I think everyone elses' had a big plate of crazy for breakfast, b/c they were doing some off the wall shit. Kate's horse walked her in the woods a couple of times for no reason, Erika's horse ate ferns every 3 feet, and wendi's horse almost threw her off a cliff and did other crazy shit. We managed to survive the horseback riding, but none of us could walk ride the next 2 days.
After horseback riding we tried breaking into this other campsite Ace to use their cool water facilities, but were unsuccessful. I think after that we just gave up and took funny pictures of the town as we drove home. We didn't want to get too rowdy b/c we had rafting early Monday, so we just had a few beers and hung out. Everyone waded in the creek near our campsite just to cool off b/c it was so goddamn hot. Sunday we grilled, ate more banana boats, and went to bed early.
Monday. wow, the big day. We got up ass early to get dressed and go to the office thing before our trip. We were the 8:30am group on the lower new river. We signed all our release forms saying we won't sue the company if we die or get hurt and then watched a video on safety. Then got our equipment and packed into a bus to drive to the river.
Our guide was this awesome guy Craig who was not what I expected at all. I dunno what I expected as far as guides go, but everyone who worked there seemed somewhat young and awesome. It was the 5 of us and these 2 older indian couples. They were business people from NY and DC and they were useless. I dont think they had a clue what they were getting into, b/c the one guy wore a $5,000 watch rafting!!! (wtf??)
The rafting was also not what I expected. It was 14 miles down a river and there weren't any rapids in the beginning, so we got to swim in the river and stuff, which was cool. At first it was the 5 of us in the front, and the other 4 and craig in the back. The river was in the middle of this gorge and it was beautiful scenery everywhere. It was also interesting to hear about all the old abandoned towns in the mountains.
We hit a few rapids and then we ate lunch. Luckily, during the one rapid, I totally almost fell out but wendi grabbed me and pulled me back in. (go wendi!). We ate lunch and the other people asked if they could be in front of the raft after lunch so we let them.
Awwww boyyyy did they SUCK. First of all, they didn't listen at all and they were in the most important positions on the raft. The girls would giggle all the time and the guys would talk while the guide was giving very important instructions. Like, gee, I dunno, what to do if you fall in a level 5 rapid. Information you want to hear. Well, they didn't listen at all and the one guy was the first person to fall off the raft. It was pretty traumatizing b/c it was a really big rapid and he just fell in and got sucked into the middle of it and down the river. Of course, his g/f we freaking out and in a fetal position in the middle of the raft and the other couple was equally as useless. We managed to get out of it and pick the guy up.
The next rapid was one called the meat grinder. (err, market according to wendi). Craig said it's the rapid with the highest fatality rate so--don't fall out. We got right in the middle of the rapid and wendi fell out. luckily, I saw it happen and managed to grab her and the guide pulled her in before she got pulled away. kate also fell out at one point too, but she held onto the boat and we pulled her in.
In addition to swimming in the river, we got to swim down some rapids too, which is not what I expected. That was really awesome, expect the time Ty busted his ass to go the wrong way around a rock and almost drowned!!
We somehow made it thru the rest of the river without anymore casualities and went back to the campsite. We had some time to chill and then went to the bar at the campground to watch the video that was filmed of the river. They gave us some drink tickets (yes!) and we watched the film.
They didn't film it at any good parts for us, but it was hilarious seeing the 4 people in front not doing anything EVERYTIME they were on film. i'm not even lying, it's hilarious. We'll be going thru a huge rapid and you would see them either not paddling, or holding on and not helping AT ALL!!! what the hell?!!?
Then we ran into craig there and a bunch of us talked to him and we gave him his tip and thanked him for the awesome ride. We went and ate dinner and during dinner it started pouring rain. Wendi and Erika kept their candyasses at the restaurant and ate dessert while me, ty and kate ran around putting shit away and covering the tents. We got back and they were thankful they didn't come b/c "it looked really bad out there. " (lol, 'did you get my bikini? did you guys get my make up case?')
Dinner was done after that since we were soaking wet, but fortunately, the rain stopped a few minutes later and we hit up the bar. We used up a few more drink tickets and ran into Craig again. We talked to him a whole bunch and then invited him back at the campsite to hang some more. We talked to him about the river and he agreed that the 2 couples totally blew and he was tempted to flip them several times throughout the trip.
We all fell in love with craig, he was really awesome and totally hilarious. he told us about fayetteville and rafting and what the business is like and stuff like that. He told some funny stories and even offered to give us a free copy of the video. (yeahhhh! now let's hope he remembers....)
Monday night we chilled, then got up early tuesday, packed, and left. The ride back was cool but we were all wicked tired and took turns napping. Well, kate and ty did, I mostly napped the whole ride. heh.
Overall: EXCELLENT trip! Not one complaint and I wouldn't change anything. Craig was talking about us going back in sept to run the lower gauley and I'm totally all about it. (Let's do it, guys!!!) There's also a whole bunch of cool hiking trails craig and kate talked about that I really want to check out in sept.
Side note: fayetteville was definitely gayer than I expected. There were a couple mo's working at the campground and we saw a few in town. We even had a secret gay couple with a fag hag stay near us (well, at least that's the conspiracy I'm sticking to). We definitely didn't totally fit in, but people were cool to us when we talked to them, which I wasn't completely expecting.
Here are some quotes/memories from the trip I'll point out. (I'll prob repeat most of wendi's if you read hers) :
-Elliott ("wait, do you know elliott? his dad works here.")
-"Hey, wanna play volleyball tonight?"
-Minden.
-Minden's bar.
-All the shit on people lawns and in their houses.
-"Do you guys have a crush on craig or something?"
"no!!! he's our raft guide..."
-Erika's tabs on everyone's bathroom activity.
-Wendi's and Erika's gas... the entire weekend.
-War paint.
-Wesley. ha. awesome dog.
-banana boats (w/ peanut butter!)
-the cock and balls corn on the cob
-"Aw man, they moved in that cabin?? I poop back there!"
-the fake sylvia browne questions
-the meat market
-psycho-analyzing craig and elliott
-"You should wait 5 minutes before putting that on her face"
-the volleyball tournament
-the giant asian family behind us.
-asking the indians for some stuff and having it blow up horribly; only to have it repaired in the morning
-haha, putting on my bathing suit COMPLETELY wrong and not realizing it until the end of the day
-wendi's leg on mine then sleeping
-"come on, you can dance barefoot!"
-ty and that rapid... lol, I can't laugh enough about it
-driving down and the mc donalds... eek.
-wesley humping alll niggghhhtt longgggg
-dude, where's my elliott and erika's movie plot
-the dude wheres my elliott review pictures
-the weird branch hiking (I have it on video!)
...and a million other things I can't think of right now. I'll add to the list as I think.