Sweat Family Trip to New River Gorge

It's interesting to navigate different stages of life and try to figure out when it's time to change traditions. The big month-long road trip was such a huge part of our family identity for years. All of us loved it and looked forward to it. It helped us connect with our family members across the country. And we made so many fond memories together.

But young adults can't take a month off of work to gallivant across the country. So we've had to pivot and decide what makes sense for our family to still spend quality time together in a way that works for the big kids. This year, we decided to go somewhere fun for a few days as a family. Just the five of us. We talked about a few ideas and landed on the New River Gorge in West Virginia. It's a new national park and none of us had ever been.

We had a great time!

Andrew was still recovering from his Achilles surgery in December, 

so long hikes weren't possible for him. 

But he joined us on a couple of the shorter ones.

This is the iconic bridge that spans the gorge.

Oh, how I love hiking.

And even though it's not everyone's favorite,

I'm so glad they'll humor me and come along.

Jumping for joy!

It's always fun to make my kids do circus tricks.

One of the gorgeous views at the end of a hike.

There was a cute little art gallery near our AirBnb.

Bear and I enjoyed perusing and contributing to their

community art project.

We also had fun looking around

their little downtown shops in 

Fayetteville.

Bursting with joy

More circus tricks

We did an escape room.

It was Hatfield and McCoy themed and was pretty good.

Always birding...

even if they're stuffed birds in the visitors center

God is an amazing artist, isn't He?
I love when I can take in the beauty of the earth.

It's refreshing to my soul.

And I love when I can share it with my favorite people, too.

Andrew has to play Tetris to get luggage for five people

to fit in the back of my car. :)

Taking in the view.

(And making Andrew nervous.)

Sisters in golden hour

The New River

And yet another view of the iconic bridge

This area is known for its rock climbing.

But since B was flying out, he didn't have 

all of his gear. But he still had to sneak in

a little bouldering.

At the end of one of the hikes that Andrew had to drop out of

At the bottom of the bridge

When we had young kids who were mostly picky eaters,

meals were not a highlight of our vacations. We mostly

would get fast food or make our own. It's so fun now that 

they actually like good restaurant food.

We ate at two REALLY good ones on this trip.

The first was a fantastic Mexican place called Don Rizo.

The service there was fantastic.

When our server found out that Caroline was vegetarian,

he brought her a little sample of their tofu.

It was DELICIOUS. And I'm usually not a tofu fan.

They also had cactus (nopales), which always makes

me think of Grandma Cuca, so I had to get that.

Our other favorite was Pies and Pints, a pizza place.

They had THE BEST pizzas!

Whitney and I shared an elote pizza that was TO DIE FOR.

I wish I could eat some right now.

The highlight of the trip was that we got to whitewater rafting! Awesome! We weren't allowed to bring our cameras and I didn't buy their package, so we have no visual proof of our experience. But I don't think any of us will ever forget it. Ha!

Here we are right before we got in the shuttles that take you to the raft.

They like to have about 10-15 people per raft, so we got teamed up with another group. It was a group of senior citizen siblings, probably ages 60-70. There were three sisters and their "baby" brother, Bob. They were super nice. Our raft guide was a character. His name was Possum. Yep, Possum. This was Whit's first time rafting. Andrew and I hadn't done it in 10+ years. Caroline just got to try it at youth conference. Brandon has gone a few time with friends. I think it was the first time for all of the siblings that were with us.

It's a six hour trip. The scenery is GORGEOUS. Some of the time, you're just lazily floating down the river. But when you come to the rapids, IT IS WORK! I forgot about that. It is serious. And you have to listen really closely to Possum and follow his directions. And baby Bob, bless his heart, had NO rhythm whatsoever. It was crazy. But you're supposed to be rowing in rhythm with the people around you. So it wasn't working and Possum ended up having to switch people around a bit on the boat to make up for it.

The rapids have different levels of intensity. Ours had class II, III, and IV. I thought the 2s and 3s were fun, but the 4s were just scary. At the bottom of one of the rapids, Possum informed us that we were going to go "surfing". You go down a rapid, which is fun and exhilarating. And then you paddle BACK to the bottom of the rapid and it shakes you around. It's scary. I didn't like it at all. Our group included maybe 10 boats that were the same size as ours. As I watched the other boats surf, that's the time when people were most likely to fall out of the boat. Um, no thanks.

We were treated to a riverside deli lunch. It was so yummy and unexpected. And then we had time to just swim in the river while everyone was finishing up their lunch. That was super fun and relaxing.

Then we got back in our boats. At the bottom of another rapid, Possum asked if we wanted to try surfing again. I said, "No!" Andrew said, "Yes!" The other eleven people on the boat remained silent...

So Possum listened to Andrew and we headed off to surf again. It didn't go well. One of the senior citizen sisters who was at the back of the boat with me started falling out of the boat, so Possum tried to grab her and OUR WHOLE BOAT TIPPED OVER. AAAGGGHHH! It was sixty seconds of sheer terror as I panicked about whether my kids were hurt or dead. Once I saw that all five of us were ok, then it was just kind of a pain in the butt. Other boats had to pick all of us up while Possum righted our raft. And the way the boat tipped, Care Bear fell right on top of B and his face got shoved into a rock. He had a pretty bad bloody nose. Baby Bob lost his glasses in the bottom of the river. D'oh! And also sprained his ankle. Everyone else was ok.

Once Possum had our boat righted, he paddled around to the rescue boats and gathered us all back up. Phew. When he found out that B had a bloody nose he said, "Do you want a tampon?" We thought he was making a joke, but nope. That's what you do for bloody noses when you're on the river, apparently. So B got to float down the rest of the river with a tampon in his nose. It was hilarious.

The rest of the rafting trip was uneventful. Thank goodness. There was a part where the water was calm and we got to get out and just float down the river in our life jackets. That was one of my favorite parts, actually.

Here we are after the rafting trip.

Notice the tampon. Ha!

We stopped in Mt. Airy for lunch and shakes at an old-school diner.

We also randomly found a sock factory there that we 

fell in love with. They have awesome, fun socks for

super cheap!

And, no Sweat Family Vacation would be

complete without a trip to an arcade!

Stopped at Dave and Busters in Winston.

Drew killed it at the football game.

The kids had fun playing air hockey.

And racing each other.

Swag.

Oh, I'm so grateful to spend time with my favorite people. It was super memorable and I'm already looking forward to our next adventure together.