Best day ever (recently)

As we sat down last night at home, 9pm after an adventure filled day, with our pad thai and massuman curry from Planet Thai in hand, Grant said, "best day ever," to which I responded "best day ever?!" and he said, ok well at least "best day recently!" And it was definitely a fun filled day (which will probably equate to a very long photo filled post)!

We drove out on Friday after class/work, headed for Russell Fork (on the Virginia/Kentucky border), ate Little Caesars in the car on the way there, and arrived at our camp site around 9 pm. One nice feature of our new stereo that Grant installed in the car is that we now have an input where I can plug the computer into the stereo, so I watched Grey's and Private Practice on the laptop while we drove...made it go by really fast :)

We just hung out around the fire for awhile before heading to bed. Grant brought his camera and was taking pictures like crazy, we decided to have some fun with our cell phones and his camera. Since all the guys were dental...we thought the following pictures were appropriate :)
(and "tooth" was more appropriate than "teeth" because of the part of the country we were in...this is unfortunate, but rang true the next morning when we met our rafting guide who had NO teeth)
Around midnight we decided to head to bed. The rest of the group slept in a tent, but Grant and I decided to do some car camping, and brought about 10 blankets and our sleeping bags, and then put the back seat down flat and had a perfect little bed. Bug proof, less noise from our neighbors who were still talking, and very comfortable.

And this was the view out the sunroof... so pretty!

The next morning, we woke up around 7 (and my alarm actually woke me up which is a rare occurrence that I'm not already awake when camping.

We camped in the same park where we were meeting the rafting group, so we took the short drive over there and got ready to go. There had been a few things (me being sick, not enough room in our boat, etc) that made it so I was probably not going to raft, but in the end someone didn't show up and they figured it out so we could all be together (which I was really glad because it got me out of waiting and reading for hours by myself), not to mention the fact that this was my first rafting trip and turned out to be a great experience :)

It was still a little cool in the morning, so here we are before we peeled off our layers to bus down to the river!

As you can see, we had gorgeous weather on the river (luckily since I was pushed in a few times...) We actually swam through a slow portion of the river for a bit at the end. I was shocked that the water was as comfortable as it was. Grant and I took the front for this leg of the trip which was fun, but I didn't like that there wasn't a good place to brace my feet! (we all managed to stay in the boat during all the rapids though...). It wasn't crazy intense but we did have class III and IV rapids along the way.
Here we are at the end...we all survived and had a great time together with our toothless guide. Travis took some good video which I'll post once it's all pieced together (might take a little while but should be pretty cool).

Beth and I sporting our sweet wetsuits at the end.

They said that people would probably be fine in shorts and shirts, but if you get easily cold, they recommended a wetsuit. So, at that point I knew I should sport the wetsuit :) Thanks Travis and Beth for having an extra, sexy wetsuit for me to sport.
We COULD NOT have had better weather. Last weekend they said it was 45 degrees and raining...this weekend was 83 degrees and sunny! After rafting, we laid out some towels and blankets and laid out in the sun in our bathing suits and ate lunch. Couldn't have asked for more in October in Kentucky! Before heading home, we drove by a lookout point of the river we had just rafted down, and it was a breathtaking view! The leaves were changing and it was fun to see the river we had just rafted down.

Ben, Carly, Grant, Taryn, Beth and Travis

One the way home, Grant and I decided that we would stop at Natural Bridge, since we still hadn't done that hike yet and we were driving right by on the way home. This is our last fall in Kentucky and with the perfect weather, thought this would probably be our best chance to see it.

Narrow little passageway on the way up...saw quite a big man squeeze through. I was impressed.

The view from the top was worth it. (the hike was relatively short and beautiful so that was nice)

This is me on top of the bridge. It was actually kind of amazing that you are allowed on top and that there aren't any railings or anything...made me realize even more that I'm going to be an ultra paranoid mom (and thought a lot about my mom who would not have liked the height :)

A fun view of the stairs down from the top...Checking out the view of natural bridge...really pretty awesome.

And since I had been the subject of pictures all day, thought I'd get one of Grant by the rock formation that Grant really liked.

And the view as we left the parking lot...1 more hour between us and our delicious Thai food!It was fun to spend the entire day not worried about school, enjoying nature and the company of some wonderful people :)