We got a nice little hotel room with a view of a bank of daffodils with cats tackling each other while using the flowers as cover. Then we hit the hot tub. Hot Springs is a tourist town, and one of the main attractions is the mineral baths fed by spring water. You get your own hot tub next to a creek feeding the river, with a roof and a door, where you soak for an hour. It felt amazing. It was even better with the clear, fresh water rather than the chlorine bath you normally experience in a jacuzzi.
[Ashley hot tubbing in Hot Springs, April 3.]
We hit the Smoky Mountain Diner for dinner. Fried everything: Chicken, okra, fries, broccoli, etc.
Outside we saw this bus:
Early on Sunday morning we got suited up in wet suits at a river expedition company downtown. There were three rafts. Ours had three couples, including us, plus our guide. Our trip was to be nine miles, to be completed in about three hours. We'd hit Class I, II, III rapids and one Class IV rapid.
Somewhere more than halfway down the French Broad we hit a Class III rapid with a steep drop. Ahead of us we watched as the young man guiding one of the other rafts bounced off the rear of his raft and went overboard. This could be exciting, was the thought that went through my head.
Ashley and I were in the front of our raft. We went over hard. I bounced off my section of the raft [everybody sits on the raft, not in the raft] and landed in a pool of water in the front of the raft. Ashley had had the foresight to hold onto a cord. In the aftermath of the landing I looked back and saw that we'd lost three people: The two other dudes and the guide. All gone. It was me, Ashley and two women, one of whom was suddenly panicking: "What do we do? What do we do?"
Our raft kind of made that decision for us, in the short term. We drifted into a calm spot at the edge of the river. Meanwhile our fellow rafters and their paddles were floating downstream, where the two other rafts collected them temporarily. We had one more steep drop to go down, and we got the courage to just do it. Thankfully the raft did most of the work and we picked up our guide and the other two dudes.
Later that day I found out I'm accepted at Temple University and waitlisted at Notre Dame. That was exceptionally good news. I still have yet to hear from half the schools I applied to for the fall.
Early Bear joined us for dinner. He said he had scheduled a shuttle for us from Hot Springs to Fontana in the morning. I didn't like the price, or the 7 a.m. departure, so I told him I got a guy, a "hiker's friend from beginning to end." In the morning, EB and I boarded Gene Laney's shuttle, and Ashley drove back to Pennsylvania. She'll be coming down twice more to see me before I finish up at Harper's Ferry in June. I can't wait to see her again.
Meanwhile, EB and I had some serious hiking to do in the Smokies...
After reading "Spring Break in Retrospect Parts I, II, & III, I want to visit this NC area! That Beer Float sounds interesting. Love ya
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