Our Virginia Adventures – Day 1

Yesterday, we drove 9 and a half hours to Front Royal, Virginia, to hang out with our grandparents. It was such a long drive that we just ate dinner and went to bed when we got there.

Today, I woke up and had some pancakes before we got ready for tubing on the Shenandoah River. When we got there, I was a little nervous but excited. Before we could do anything, a bus drove us to the starting point for our tubing adventure.

We got on our rafts and started floating at 0.000000001 mph. We picked up a little speed at one point where there were little rapids, but we mostly just floated—slowly, very slowly. This was because the river was very low. We had to get out at a few points and walk our tubes over the rocks. When we got to the rocks, they were like a wall, so we had to get out of our tubes and push them over the little rock wall.

We saw a bunch of massive Blue Herons, fish, and crawfish in the rocky areas. Kate, Mama, and Grandma also spotted a gigantic turtle. Dragonflies landed on us the entire time—some were very large, but most were smaller and blue. We also found a butterfly, and Kate held it.

Then we saw an island, and I suggested we stop there for lunch. So we did! The problem was that there were sharp rocks all around it, so I got a lot of cuts. I ate a cheese sandwich for lunch with goldfish and two Rice Krispie treats. We ran out of sunscreen on the island, so we all got burned.

After we ate, we got back on our rafts and drifted down the river for hours. We also got out of the tubes a lot and went swimming in the water.

Finally, after about four hours, we saw the dock. And then it took another 30 minutes to get to it! When we landed, we got our rafts and carried them up a giant hill to return them. Afterwards, we got frozen custard. I got something called the Dirty Delight, which was chocolate custard with crushed Oreos and gummy worms. I got home, ate dinner, read my book for two hours, and went to bed.