Sowers Family Vacation, 2013 - Part 4

Okay, this is the last one, I promise. ;) The rest of our trip consisted of trails, horseback riding, Putt putt, (Did you know, at a park/resort doesn't have anything opened early??) and hanging out at my Grandparents. Oh, and two trips to Starbucks. A need since my Grandparents don't have any wifi and I love coffee. ;)

The lookout tower. Over 3,000 feet up!

Another sister picture! Look at that view...

After the lookout tower and visiting the gift shops, we headed to horseback riding! This is Katheryn's horse, Sundance. She was so excited because he looks like Trigger! 

Mom and Sarah's horses. =) Bud was mom's and he was soooo slow! All he wanted to do was eat. And then Sarah's horse Jack. =) 

On the trail! It was an adventure! Deep mud, rocky places, steep hills. Our horses were sure-footed. Right in front of me is Jennifer and her horse, Gracey =)

Dad's horse, Black Jack. His only speed was fast! He always wanted to be right behind me.

Me! Trying to get a picture of me with my horse =) I always got stuck being the photographer! 

My horse, Blue. =) He was a sweetie! And pretty much did whatever he was supposed to. He loved picking his own path. =)

Time for Putt putt! It was a cool 18 hole course with lots of fun obstacles. We split into two teams. I tied for third. =)

1st hole!

The last 8 =)

A ball cleaner, cute!

Then we headed to my Grandparents. This is their house. They live on Granddad's cow farm. =)

Buddy! Their doggy =) They've had him for about a year, but this is the first time we've seen him.

A fun old barn on the property.

And there you have it! My whole vacation. =) Hope you've enjoyed everything! I know I did =) What would be your favorite vacation??

{Click here if you missed Part 1, Part 2, or part 3}

Until next time...

Sowers Family Vacation, 2013 - Part 3 (White water rafting)

The day had come! I was so... not ready. Let me just say, I was nervous. I like new experiences, but I also like knowing every single detail of how things were going to work. Ummmm... Yeah, that didn't happen. The rafting company we were going with was about an hour and 15 minutes away. We were supposed to be there an hour before the start time. That meant we got to leave at 6:45am. Okay, it's not that I'm not a morning person, because I am if I have to be. I can be chipper. But, left to my own devices I would not wake up early. Oh, well, it was worth it. =) 

Jennifer, Sarah, and I waiting to leave. I'm eating cereal ;)

Just getting there turned out to be an adventure. I was the navigator, but the directions ended up being wrong and we had to call the place. Did they say an hour early? We got there 20 min early, whoops! Turns out though it was for the best because we didn't even do anything for that 20 min. It was chilly and rainy; mom wanted to postpone for better weather, but they said no. Kind of glad, it would have been a pain. 

At 9:00, when we were supposed to leave, we were all directed to get our paddles, life jackets (excuse me, I meant PFD's ;) ) and helmets. 

Sarah, Me, Dad, and Jennifer (We went on the intermediate trip)

Katheryn and Mom. (They were going on the family fun trip and left 15 min. after we did)

Then we, plus about 40 other people got into a bus to ride out to the river. 

The drive wasn't bad except the lady in front of me opened her window and because it was raining I got a little wet. I guess I was about to get a lot wet, but still. =P One of the guides was on the bus with us and went over a few things before we got there. Like PFD's. Apparently if you think "Ooohhh, this is niiiiccce, I can breathe!" It's too loose! 

We finally reached the river! One of the worst parts was there was only port-a-potties, oh well, my traveling experience had prepared me. ;)

This was when we got to find out who our guide was and who else would be on our boat. I have to say, we got the best guide ever. Her name was Samantha, or Sam. She was super friendly, fun, but not obnoxious. We also got a great group of people put with us. They were another family, a Dad (Harvey), a Mom (Kathy), a son (Harvey; yes, another one and not a JR), and a daughter (Alicia). They were also super nice. It was fun getting to know all of them. We went around and did introductions and she had us push the boat out and decide where to sit. We shoved off and she explained how to sit (not the most comfortable position. Your hips are supposed to face forward, but your feet are wedged the opposite way), how to paddle (not just with your arms, your whole body!) and a few commands to start off with (like forward with a number, take a break, left/right back to turn, back it up). We learned so much! I felt like a pro. ;) 

Starting out! (That's Alicia back there =) )

Jennifer said I looked like an angel =P

So, I was the official photographer. Although I got much encouragement from my raft mates, I was unable to snap a picture during the actually rapids. I was waaaaay too focused on paddling! But, I hope you still enjoy the pictures of the river. =) 

This is Kathy =) We never got a picture of the Dad Harvey...

Jennifer and the younger Harvey. I think we just came out of rapids.

Rapids, here we come!

This rapid was called a swimmers rapid. We could actually get out and swim through it if we wanted. Sarah took the plunge out of our group, but Jennifer and I wanted to reach our goal of staying in the boat. ;)

Going through the swimmers rapid!

We went 16 miles on the river over a lot of rapids. I forgot the number... The first 8 miles were supposed to warm us up and the next had a lot of the bigger rapids. We went through class two rapids, all the way up to class 5 rapids. It was exhilarating! Sam said we were pretty bad at first, but that we got the hang of everything. She kept warning us to paddle together so we didn't look like a drunken spider! She also laughed because on our first class 5, we were way better than the last class 3. She said it must have been because she told us after the class 5 was the "meat grinder". Lots and lots of underwater rocks that will do some damage. 

All the rapids had names and most had stories behind them. Also, all along the river were old mining towns. Some that weren't there anymore. Lots of cool history. Like a poker game that went on for two weeks. The last hand, the owner of the hotel, bet his hotel and lost it. Surprisingly, the next day it burned to the ground. Imagine that! ;) 

The second to last rapid was another class 5. Sam gave us the option to go through a huge wave or go around us. Brave adventurers that we are, we all said to go through it. Boy, she was not kidding when she said it was huge! We all were supposed to yell bonsai as we went over, but 4 of us barely got it out before falling into the water. Three of the four sitting across from me fell off. (Harvey, Harvey, and Alicia). Well, the rest of us scrambled to try and get them back in. But we were still going through the rapids and it was kind of chaotic. We tried to do it the way Sam had taught us. Then, as I looked behind me, I realized that Dad had fallen over too. I freaked out, slightly. Okay, a lot. I saw his bright green shirt bobbing along, go under the boat and then finally come back up. Finally Sam pulled him out. He was a little disoriented and exhausted from it. It was a good thing we only had a class 3 left! Dad last his paddle on that one and almost fell out trying to grab it. Sam told him that we liked him more than his paddle as she pulled him back in.

All in all, even with the fall, we had a blast! At the end, we helped pack up the raft and headed back to the main building where we met Katheryn and mom. They had fun too. =)

All done and in dry clothes, headed back to the lodge.

I would definitely go again! Have you ever been? Would you like to?? 

{Click here if you missed Part 1, Part 2, or to see part 4}

Until next time...

Sowers Family Vacation, 2013 - Part 2 (Random Pictures)

Wow, totally did not mean for it to take me this long to do my next post, whoops! The next thing we did on vacation was white water rafting. Mom even got us a water proof camera to take pictures. Unfortunately those take forever for them to develop! So, I thought I would share with you some random pictures that we took. Ones that weren't really a part of anything exciting, but were still fun. =)

The first deer we saw here! I love deer. =) They're not something you see every day in FL cities, and they are so cute. =) We thought it was pretty funny (Maybe funny weird?) that she was eating flowers out of this little cemetery. One person was smart and put a covering on theirs ;)

We probably looked like a bunch of silly tourists stopped in the middle of the road to get these pictures ;) But, we weren't the only ones. Dad said he got stuck behind a car doing the same thing. But when he looked at the licence plate to see where they were from, it said WV; come on guys, you live here! =P

Our room. =) It was a lot bigger than I thought it would be! We had three rooms, 4 beds, and a nice living space. We got it a little messy ;) But it was nice. =) The biggest bummer was that the wifi did not work in here. Weird thing was that it worked great outside of our room. Didn't get to talk to Nathan much because of it, sad day... But we survived =)

I think one of the nicest things about our room was the beautiful view from the two porches. You could see mountains in the distance, and as you'll see, wildlife felt free to come and hang out. 

Katheryn was so excited to be able to say she had been this close to a deer! Obviously they understand the fact that humans will feed them. I promise, we did not. Deer seem to be very curious. I love when their ears perk up and they just look at you with their big eyes. We also saw a raccoon (only one, thought we would see more!) but it was at night and the only thing we could see in our picture was his red eye. =)

Hopefully you all enjoyed that! What about you? Do you love to look at mountains, or is the beach more your thing? Would you be excited about deer like I was??

{Click here if you missed part 1, or to see part 3, and part 4}

Until next time...

Sowers Family Vacation 2013 - Part 1

Usually when we Sowers go on a "vacation", it means we all pile into the car and drive 13 hours to my Grandparents (on my Mom's side) house to visit them. It's nice to see them and I love them, but honestly, they live out in the middle of nowhere, no wifi, and not much to do except watch the grass grow and watch my Granddad's cows. 

But this year, my parents planned a real vacation, woohoo! The main reason is because my younger sister is leaving for basic training with the Army in October, so they wanted one last family fun thing. I wasn't that excited about going; The car ride, the fact that I wouldn't talk to Nathan for 7 days, and we were going white water rafting. Fun, as long as your father doesn't share the fact that someone he knows, knew someone who died doing it. Even with all that though, the vacation "must go on". So with some... encouragment ;) to have a good time, we were off!

Every time we make this journey, we set off early in the morning and drive the whole 13 hours. Trust me, we have gotten to be expert travelers. If you ever have to use the restroom before we need gas, you will get the evil eye. This time was different though. We left after church on Sunday, drove 8 hours to Columbia, SC, and stopped over at a hotel. Then the next day we only had about 5 hours to drive. 

The hotel was nice! Two queen beds and a pull out, so no one slept on the floor ;) Oh, and an orange wall always makes me happy! 

The drive on Monday passed by really fast; when you're used to 13 hours, 5 seems easy. =) We got to Pipestem, WV, (the resort/park we were staying at) around 1:30 and had about an hour until we could check into our rooms. Time to explore! Pipestem had so many incredible places. We decided to ride the tram down the mountain into the valley while we waited.

Sister picture! Left to right: Sarah (My second to youngest sister) Me (Can you believe I'm the oldest of the four*) Katheryn (My youngest sister) and Jennifer (The sister right below me). Canyon Rim was the name of the building/area that the tram was at.
*My oldest sister Jaquelyn is married, so I'm the oldest at home.

Tram from the top

Tram from the bottom

Here's our view from inside the tram. It was a liiitttle scary! But lots of fun! Jennifer, Sarah and I rode in one, and my parents and Katheryn rode in another.

Going down!

Say cheese! ;)

Coming up!

This was such a fun cave; we wanted to explore!

Down in the valley there was much to do; a gift shop, a cool river, and a tough trail.

Man, why didn't I bring my fishing pole?? (Not that I have one =P) I could have brought home some trout!

We skipped rocks here and Dad was pretty good. My highest was three =)

Here is that trail I mentioned. It was called the Farley loop and according to the sign it was for experienced hikers. Did that stop us?? Of course not! Boy, they weren't kidding though. Mom only made it about 50 feet (of course she was wearing a skirt and sandals.) until she went back down to wait for us. There were lots of times all 5 of us were on our hands and knees climbing up a steep, slippery slope. But it was so worth it! We reached the top to find a beautiful overlook with a spectacular view. My God is certainly the best artist ever! We actually found out that we hadn't reached the very top, but we were all ready to head back =)

My parents =) Not exactly the ideal hiking outfit mom ;)

Almost there!

 The view from the overlook, awesome!

Only the first day and Pipestem was turning out to be so much fun! Well, I have a ton more pictures and a lot more to say, be on the look out for part two. =) Hope you enjoyed!

(I'd love to hear from you, readers! What has been one of your favorite vacations? Which part of this post did you enjoy most??)

{click to read part 2, part 3, and part 4!}

Until next time...