White Water Rafting


It was a sweaty-hot day on the beach next to the River Gorge River in the beautiful state of West Virginia. The sun was shining like Gandalf’s staff in the mines of Moria. Our youth group was on a trip we like to call West Virginia trip. It was WHITE WATER RAFTING DAY! We had already gone through some pretty intense parts of the river, but not the most intense.
We were all anxious for the next ride, but first we needed to get some food in our empty complaining stomachs. The leaders were all cooking the burgers and hotdogs in time for us to actually eat some significant food, but all there was to eat at the table right now was P.B. and J. Well it was better than nothing. There was one of the longest lines ever to be held at a lunch table just to get to some sandwiches. Luckily, I was one of the first ones to get to the table. Once I was out of the ocean of pushy kids, I sat down on a raft to enjoy a juicy grape.
“Mmmm” my stomach said with satisfaction. But of course, our nitelife leader Steve decided to be himself and find a clump of sticky green seaweed and use it as a wig. Steve yelled
“HEY EVERYBODY! IT’S RYLEI’S BIRTHDAY!!” As soon as we saw Steve, we started to crack up. He told us to sing Happy Birthday to her so, (laughing as we sung) we did.
Thirty minutes after that it was time to leave the sandy white beach. We were about to head down a rapid named THE MEAT GRINDER. Sounds very pleasant right? Well we were all freaking out.
“AHH!! WERE ALL GONNA DIE!!” and at times we said to our friends
“If you make it through this, please tell my mom I said I love her.” It was catastrophic. By the time we were right in front of the rapid we were all screaming our heads off.
“Please, please, don’t let us die Lord!” we all yelled. We all held on to our paddles for dear life.
Some of the kids fell off their rafts. But people on our raft had better luck, no one fell off.
“YIPPIE!!” We all said “Lets do that again!!” But then our tour guide just had to ruin our lives and eat all of our steak.
He said, “Did you know that people have died while white water rafting on some of these rapids?” Gulp. Our group all said at the same time. But we had to keep pressing on. Next stop, a HUGE, GINORMOUS rock to jump off of.
Once we got there we all screamed with excitement
“THIS IS SOO COOL!” It took a little bit of work to get out of the raft though. The rocky steps were a little high. But then just as I was getting on to the rock, I heard a scream. I turned my head and there they were, just sitting there, three HUGE skinny spiders. Five seconds later I was already one tenth away from the top of the mountainous rock.
I heard screams of joy once I got to the top of the rock. People were jumping off of it in all kinds of funky different ways. I saw some do flips and twists. Others dived head first of feet first. But I was one of the head first divers.
“AHHHHH!!!” I screamed until I hit the water. It was nice to feel the fast flowing wind in my face and then the cool murky water all around me.
Then it came time for us to leave the skyscraper rock. We had about one more rapid to go down until it was time to pack into the bus again. This rapid was a five. (The second to most dangerous rapid.) We had gone through a five before though, and no one in our group fell off. So we were feeling pretty confident about our selves. That is, until we saw it. The water was speeding down the riverbed like a BMW on the autobahn. We all freaked out. Our guide once again made it worse.
“Guys you have to be careful not to fall off of the raft near the big huge rock okay.”
We all replied, “Why?”
He said, “Well this rock sits really close to the water and is hollow underneath. If you fall off the raft you can get sucked under and you will drown to death.”
“Ohhh. Ummmmm. Ok guys lets NOT fall off,” I said. We started to slide through the water like a knife going though butter as we slipped down the rapid. By this time, we were screaming a billion times louder than before.
“AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” We dodged rocks, left and right. Every time we turned a corner I felt like I was going to slip off the raft. Then the Death star rock came.
“PADDLE! PADDLE! PADDLE!” Our guide yelled. We did so. We paddled for our LIVES. And before we even knew it, the white water rafting excursion was over. Everyone in our raft sighed in relief.
“Pheewwwww! Were alive!”
We pulled our raft up to the rocky river bank, all the while talking about how much fun it was t actually be alive. Then we all packed our selves into the bus like sardines and enjoyed some stories and orange pop