Kayaking the TN River Gorge: day 1 -by Annie T.

It was our first day of River Fellows and we were all thrilled! We showed up bright eyed and bushy tailed at GPS at 9 o'clock that morning with our heavy bags for our overnight kayaking trip.

The first thing we did was get familiar with our new waterproof journals. We also copied in a mind pie, which we later shaded in with our strengths and weaknesses. After that, we learned about watersheds and the history of the Tennessee River and where we were staying and where we were kayaking. After changing and getting our personal flotation devices, we were ready to go!

After a long, song filled bus ride, where we actually finished the 99 bottles of milk on the wall song, we arrived at the put-in, along with the rain. When it dried off, we all stepped out and applied sunscreen. Our guides Terri and Jo, arrived and then we ate lunch. Mrs. Couch then took the GPS bus and an Outdoor Chattanooga van up to the cabin where she dropped off our bags and the bus. While she was gone, Terri and Jo taught us kayaking basics and a bit about the kayaks we were using. When she got back, we were ready to put out and the rain quit just in time! We kayaked for about two hours when most of us began to get very tired.

Eventually, we saw a nice large rock where we could take a break! We jumped off the rock and floated around.

After the break, we continued on our way till we finally arrived at our cabin. But as we pulled up to the dock and get out, Terri saw a giant snapping turtle right at the take-out! She pushed it away with her paddle and then we all got out. 

Then we went up to explore the cabin, and more importantly: shower! After that, we all dried off and start talking for a while but then eventually we all started dozing off and taking a nap. We then ate a delicious lasagna dinner cooked by Terri and started to plan our night hike. We then went out to take our night hike, but after a lot of poison ivy half the group split off to do a casual boardwalk. When all the group came back together, we went upstairs and played some team bonding games which ended in a lot of laughs! Finally, we saw how late it was and decided to hit the hay and get some well earned rest because we knew we had big plans for the next day!