Well, we survived!  Those of you who know six24 know that we went whitewater rafting this weekend.  Six made it out just fine.  In fact, he probably fared better than I did, and from his seat on the raft behind me, he even managed to head-butt me going through one of the waves and whack me in the back with his paddle at another point.

The trip was awesome, even for someone like me who doesn't exactly feel at home in the water.  We spent about 7 hours on the New River in West Virginia on Saturday, hitting 22 rapids ranging from Class 1 to Class 5 - and I mean hitting them.  We had an awesome guide who managed to steer us into every big wave perfectly.  So well, in fact, that we were the only boat in our group to capsize.  We were all dumped out on a Class 4, which shook me up for a little while, but I recovered.  All but one person and the guide (on an 8-man boat) were dumped again later on.  A friend of ours took in a lot of water on the second fall, and looked kinda green by the time he got back to the raft.  Most of the people rafting didn't get thrown in at all, but we got it twice, which I can't say I enjoyed too much.  I was hoping to stay inside the raft at all times.  At least it added to the experience, but I think we were all glad that it didn't happen a third time.  My fiance managed to fall out before we ever got to the hard stuff.  She just wasn't set when we started paddling at one point, and fell in.  She got to hear about it the rest of the day  

At the beginning, our guide wanted to know our names and nicknames if we had any.  For those of us who didn't already have nicknames, some were thought up.  Unfortunately, the helmets we wore bore the name of the rafting company - ACE.  Someone suggested to my fiance, "hey, you could be Ace," which then led to me being dubbed "Gary."  Those of you who watch Saturday Night Live know that Ace and Gary are the "Ambiguously Gay Duo."  Not exactly a duo that I ever thought I'd be associated with...  At least, in this case, my Ace was female   I'm afraid the name may stick, though...

We were supposed to raft again on Sunday on the Gauley River.  Only five of our group of ten ended up going.  I, for one, was a little beat up (silver-dollar-size bruise on one leg, and sore in many other areas) and was a little freaked out after inhaling so much water on our two swims in the rapids.  Then Ace and the guy who turned green both ended up sick, so we came home early. 

Even though I got a little freaked out, I have to say it was awesome, and I would do it again sometime.  I just wasn't ready for more right away.  If any of you have never gone, I would definitely recommend trying it at least once.  Here's the link to the rafting company, if anyone is interested:

ACE Adventures