Adventure, 2011!

I want a summer home in West Virginia.

It was gorgeous. The mountains, especially through Pennsylvania, reminded me so much of Germany. I even saw windmills and crosses. The only things missing were the random castles on the mountains. Oh, well there was the occasional mountainside resort. I guess that's kind of the same thing.

Teresa and I decided this is why West Virginia and Pennsylvania have such a large German population. It would look a lot like home. Just beautiful.

Anyway, we came home a little waterlogged, with bruised bums and skinned knees. Badges of honor!

This is a natural waterslide in Ohiopyle, Pa. Okay, let me rephrase. This is a part of a natural waterslide in Ohiopyle, Pa. The piece we actually rode down. It is fun until you hit that first point where your head goes under, you get disoriented and you realize the river carries you and you have very little control over where you end up. I guess you have to do it more than once to get a good feel for it, but I chickened out. Catie did it once, and Christopher went three times. He even went the whole length (and then promptly advised us not to do that.)

This seems to be a popular hangout. Below the waterfall is sort of a pool where you can just swim in the river. It doesn't look it in that picture, but there were a lot of people there. Lots of families, too, and little kids sliding. I guess it could be that my adventuresome side isn't as large as I'd like to believe! ;)

Teresa insists if she wasn't pregnant, she would have done it with us. Instead, she sat on the sidelines with the video and her pom poms. (She didn't really have pom poms, but she sure cheered! ;) )

It was very different from this place:

The nearby Youghiogheny River. (I'm getting better at spelling it than I am pronouncing it!)
You could walk all the way across it. I don't think it ever gets really deep in this part of the river, but if you're as tenderfooted as I am, good luck getting across it! It felt like it took a half an hour for Catie and I to make it out to our knees. I can tell you...I didn't want to get my suit wet because I didn't want to be that cold for that long. Thankfully, skin dries fast!

What's funny is the difference in temperature between the river and the falls. The water at the waterslide, not a mile away, was much warmer. Of course, the adrenaline could have made a difference.

Teresa and Christopher sat on the grass on the banks of the river. Christopher amused himself taking pictures of the various dogs wandering around with their owners. That and trying to get candid shots of his mother and sister wobbling in the river. I will have to post those once I get them off my camera. He's a good photographer.

Sunday we went to Laurel Caverns.

Teresa had the forethought to bring big, matching Nebraska sweatshirts. I had the forethought to bring neither pants nor sneakers. My top half was toasty! My lower half...not so much. I love my Tommy Hilfiger flip flops. They do not make good spelunking-wear. How I did not, in a couple of places, slide off into a black oblivion I will never know. Near the end of the tour they turned off all the lights (is there a cave tour anywhere that doesn't feel the need to make you experience pure darkness?), and then did a flashing light display to Handel's Hallelujah Chorus. That was different, and had to do with being underground how, exactly?

We spent Sunday afternoon at the pool in Morgantown. They had waterslides the kids convinced me to get on. I know, I know. They had to twist my arm...not hard at all. We spent most of our time on the slides or the diving board. We hit a point where the kids wore me out. But it was good. The pool closed at 6 p.m. and forced us to go on home. We wanted to make spaghetti.

Which we did. We made ourselves a nice spaghetti dinner topped off with brownie a la mode and spent the evening recouperating, lounging in the living room and just talking.

The drive home was interminable. Eleven and a half hours. Mostly because it rained off and on almost the whole way, especially through the mountains. Oh, and we ran into two instances of bumper-to-bumper traffic. Once we stopped for a potty break and saw a TCBY, so we decided we needed frozen yogurt to keep us going. We also decided to enjoy it inside the store and took about a 15 minute break from the road.

We hit bad thunderstorms in spots on the way home. We hit one in Aiken and I wanted to cry. I couldn't go more than 40 miles an hour on I-20, because I couldn't see, but we were so close to home!

Let me say, I have never unpacked a car as quickly as we did this one. We walked in the door about 9:30 p.m., I had the rental car returned by 10. My jammies were calling loudly.

The best part of the trip was that Teresa and I got to spend some good girl time talking and catching up. She reminded me that I hadn't seen her since 2004. If she moves to California later this year, who knows when I'll see her again. But I'm pretty sure that's going to mean a plane ticket and a visit...a whole lot sooner than 2016.