Our weekend in the upstate started at Sista/Cousin’s house in Cowpens. Shortly after arriving, we heard the account of a cougar siting in their front yard by a neighbor passing by a few nights prior. Cliff and Scott woke early Saturday morning for a 50-mile bike ride before our kayaking adventure began. Terri and I were enjoying a cup of coffee on her porch when she spotted something across the road under a tree. Well our "cougar radars" went straight up. We were crooning and straining our necks to see if we could make it out when I yelled, “OMG! It’s got me”…..Terri jerked around just in time to see it. It wasn’t a cougar, it was a black panther and it was rubbing up against my leg. Ha, thought it was real didn’t you? I did too, for a split second. It was Terri’s black cat stopping by to say hello. Whew, crisis averted! And the siting under the tree…..baby deer.
Time for some kayaking. After Scott and Cliff got back from their ride, we loaded the kayaks and headed for the Pacolet River. Today’s trip was about 4 hours long. This river was somewhat narrow with trees hanging over the water for most of the trip. This made for some good shade because it was hotter than you know what.
Amos, Otis and the GPS
The river was running at about 2 miles an hour and was pretty shallow for the most part. The upstate rivers don’t look like our low country rivers. The water is muddy and slightly red from all that red clay, but granted….they had received a lot of rain making it a little more muddy.
Well if you’ve followed our kayaking adventures before, then you know we can’t just kayak like normal people. Nope, something has to happen and in true adventurous Sista/Cousin fashion, someone turned their boat over and it wasn't me this time. HaHa! Terri got stuck on a sand bar in the Pacolet River, put one leg out to push off and when she tried to get her leg back in, she tipped to the right and took on some water....then she tipped back to the left trying to avoid taking on more water but over compensated which started the boat wobbling and she ended up flipping out the right side.....in knee deep water. The kayak quickly filled up with water, dislodged from the sandbar and started floating down river. She had to chase it and try to keep it from sinking until Cliff and Scott got to us. I had to call Cliff on his cell phone to say, “Terri’s out of the boat and it’s sinking!” He and Scott were up ahead by a couple minutes and had to paddle back against the flow of the river. The kayak was saved. Cliff and Scott turned it over to drain the water. Terri was ok but tragically, her camera and phone went in the water. She lost her Pepsi, diaper wipes and one flip flop. Cliff found the Pepsi floating down stream before they got to us, but no luck on the wipes or flip flop. She was a funny site walking around with one flop on. We laughed a good deal after it was over, but losing her camera and phone was not funny. That was several hundreds of dollars worth of equipment. We've learned a lesson about taking equipment with us on the boat.
Well if you’ve followed our kayaking adventures before, then you know we can’t just kayak like normal people. Nope, something has to happen and in true adventurous Sista/Cousin fashion, someone turned their boat over and it wasn't me this time. HaHa! Terri got stuck on a sand bar in the Pacolet River, put one leg out to push off and when she tried to get her leg back in, she tipped to the right and took on some water....then she tipped back to the left trying to avoid taking on more water but over compensated which started the boat wobbling and she ended up flipping out the right side.....in knee deep water. The kayak quickly filled up with water, dislodged from the sandbar and started floating down river. She had to chase it and try to keep it from sinking until Cliff and Scott got to us. I had to call Cliff on his cell phone to say, “Terri’s out of the boat and it’s sinking!” He and Scott were up ahead by a couple minutes and had to paddle back against the flow of the river. The kayak was saved. Cliff and Scott turned it over to drain the water. Terri was ok but tragically, her camera and phone went in the water. She lost her Pepsi, diaper wipes and one flip flop. Cliff found the Pepsi floating down stream before they got to us, but no luck on the wipes or flip flop. She was a funny site walking around with one flop on. We laughed a good deal after it was over, but losing her camera and phone was not funny. That was several hundreds of dollars worth of equipment. We've learned a lesson about taking equipment with us on the boat.
End of the Pacolet River trip....
Sunday, we paddled down the Broad River. This trip was about 3 hours long. The river was much wider and rocky in places, which meant we were going through some rapids. Terri will scare the bejeebies out of you. She had been telling me about the rapids and that she was for sure going to wear her life jacket. She had me so nervous. We navigated them pretty well, heck they were even fun, but according to Terri…..I thought…..we still had the worse ones to come towards the end of our trip. Lord, I worried about that the whole day. Turns out, there weren’t anymore. She had been telling me about a previous trip and a different part of the river. The rapids in the beginning turned out to be a lot of fun. Because the river broadened and wasn't running as fast as the Pacolet, we had to paddle much of the day today. We noted that every one of us except for Cliff had flipped our boats and that it was his turn. Oh well, maybe next time……No boat flipping this Sunday! Awesome Fun!!!!
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| The Rapids |
Laurie and the rapids
Terri and the rapids
Terri and Scott.....the pros
Cliff....the navigator
Scott and Cliff ...letting the river move them
Scott...chilling in the shade
Next kayaking trip........Lawson Falls challenge, maybe. I think we can do it, don't you? LOL!!
Lawson Falls
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