I was 10 minutes late getting to the pick up point and I was one of the last person to get there. Whatever you say about them, Americans as a culture are damn punctual. One thing, we Indians lack. There is even a joke going around that IST stands for Indian Stretchable Time... :D. Once I got there, I realized that I was not the only one without friends there. There were a couple of others like me. I thought I could strike up some conversation with these folks, but unfortunately we were put into seperate vans. There were 4 of them, all Fords, each capable of holding 15 people and each one filled to near capacity. There was a lot of chatter in the van about anything and everything. Soon a friendly game of 'Uno' followed in which I too took part (the second time around). But apart from that, I didn't actively participate in the chatter that much. Anyone who knows me, would be surprised at this statement.
Due to large number of people in the van, we made several stops en-route to the camp. We stopped for lunch at a place called the Golden Corral. This, like everything else in the US, is a chain. But what the heck, they had good food, greasy - Yes, but good none the less. And I didn't care about how mcuh grease was there in the food either. For $11 + tips you get a really filling buffet meal here. There were puh-lenty of stuff to eat. So much so that I didn't get to the desserts section. I was pretty much stuffed by the time I got through the main course and the fruits. But I heard the desserts were really good. One of the guys in my van puked and was promptly given the name 'Pukey Pukerson' or something. I'm not too sure about the last name, but 'Pukey' was definitely part of it.
Well, after such a satisfying meal, went on a short trip to see the local legend 'Moth Man of West Virginia' (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mothman). It was, mmmm.... interesting, to say the least. After countless other stops we reached the New River Gorge/Bridge. Man, this was a monster of a bridge. There was a spot near the bridge where you could take pictures of it. It was so very beuatiful. You get a panoramic view of the valley from here. Unfortunately I don't have a panoramic photo of the place :(. For now, these will have to do. The small bridge you see is the one which was there before the new bridge was built.
Following a brief stop here, we moved on to the camp grounds. There was a volleyball court there and we played 3 rounds of volleyball. Though my team lost two of the three matches, it was fun. We had dinner at 7 or 7.30. We built a small camp fire and sat around that for the rest of the evening, eating roasted marshmellows and trying to pass the time. We turned in early as we had a big day coming up and we need to get up early for it.
Sunday was pretty chilly. After having put on the wet suits, PFD's and helmets, we had a quick lecture on what is to await us (as if we already didn't have enough of it during our classes at OSU). This lecture continued all the way to the river. After the build up that was given at OSU, I was slightly anxious as to what was to be expected. But by the time we got through the first set of rapids, I was okay. Actually it was kind of anti climatic if you ask me. We were expecting something much much worse, and what we got was not that bad. And in a wierd sort of a way, I felt a bit let down. Actually I know I shouldn't feel that way, but somehow I just did. We did the rowing reasonably well as a team and we got through all the rapids with relative ease. Next time, I'm definitely going to sit in front of the raft to experience more adventure ;) :D. We successfully navigated, 'The Meat Grinder', 'The Greyhound Bus Stopper', 'Millers Folly', 'Thread the Needle' and a bunch of other rapids. At the end, we just picked up our raft, loaded it up onto a trailer and went back to the camp grounds pretty happy.
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