The day started out quite cold. It was in the low 40s, and took a bit to warm up since we are heavily shaded. We agreed to leave by 10 so we'd make sure to have enough time for 2 runs. Missy and Jeremiah would go first, and then I'd join in the second run. The 7 mile drive up the mountain from our campground certainly goes faster when you aren't white-knuckling it with a fitty, but it still takes a looooooong time due to all the switchbacks.
We got to the river by 11, stopped to scout powerhouse on the way up. It wasn't as busy as I thought it would be. I didn't check AW, but it's possible that other areas of the SE got rain and so that would mean lots of other options for boaters. Missy and Jeremiah put on at 11:30. I stayed at the putin for 30 minutes, working on adding pictures to all my blog posts. It was very slow going, but at least they were loading correctly. At noon, I drove down to the takeout to wait for my sibs. I spent another 1.5 hours on picture loading. Missy and Jeremiah showed up at 1:30, and luckily they had had a good run. So we loaded boats and headed back up to the top.
Missy decided not to do a second run, so we didn't have to set shuttle for the 2nd run either. It's funny, though, how many comments we get about the scootie. Everyone seems enamored of the idea of being self-sufficient for setting shuttle on runs. The funniest moment with a scootie admirer was when Missy was by herself at the pickup, and a guy walked by and couldn't hold back asking "How heavy is that scooter? How can you lift it up there alone?" He couldn't see the ramp (to drive the scootie up onto the hitch holder), and was incredulous that Missy could lift it up on her own. Heh.
My run with Jeremiah started out a little nerve-racking. He told me to just follow him, since he remembered all the lines. But there's a lot of boulder dodging, and so it was hard to pick my line and try to watch if Jeremiah was making any big moves. After a quick eddy break, we worked it out so he would warn me before any drops of consequence so then I was free to relax between drops. The Ocooee is a fun, action-packed run. Too many rapids to be counted, with fast giggle water between. Its only downfall is…..SNAKES!!!!! In the middle of the run, Jeremiah goes "Hey, there's a snake" and swimming RIGHT at me was a hideous snake. Have you ever seen a snake swimming? It evokes a primitive fear response, and I was screaming like a banshee as it headed for my kayak. Seriously, it looked like it was going to board my boat. I'm not even that scared of snakes, but I could not prevent the screaming. We were in a giggle water section, so I'm sure all the rafters behind us thought I was insane.
We got off the river and decided to get our grocery shopping done. We drove about 20 miles to a super Walmart. It was an annoyingly long trip due to construction in the shopping mall area, and because we were stupid to shop at Walmart on a Sat afternoon. Blech. But, as I try to remind myself, I'm not in a hurry anymore. So I tried to chillax, which is tough when you're in a checkout line for 20 minutes.
We got back to camp around 7, and right when we parked, we saw the back passenger tire on the truck was completely flat! This was flabbergasting; since there was no way Jeremiah could have driven that curvy mountain drive without knowing he had a flat. But it seemed just as impossible that we somehow ran over a nail or something right as we got to camp. He got the tire off, and there was no sign of a puncture. So who knows what happened. Maybe a slow leak down the mountain? Jeremiah put the spare tire on, and we called it a night.
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