Mystery Road Trip!

11 teenagers. 2, 15 passenger vans. 2 leaders and 6 days = mystery road trip! We left at 1 am and drove 12 hours to Bryson City, North Carolina. Let me tell you, that was one of the hardest drives ever. I've never driven that far, alone, straight. I had 5 kids in my van, and several promised to stay awake the whole time, that lasted, hmm maybe two hours? We made it, with no accidents, no falling asleep at the wheel, and no horribly grouchy due to sleep deprivation leaders. We immediately started the day by tubing down Deep Creek, and getting banged up and bruised along the way. It was a rocky creek. One kid stood on slick rocks, fell and busted his eyebrow. I watched it happen, and had a small panic attack inside my head. He was fine, and got some style points for the fall.

That night of sleep was marvelous. I haven't been that tired too many other times in my life. We got up the next morning and hit the road for a 2 hour drive to Ashville, NC where we went up Chimney Rock and picked up one of our youths at Montreat where he was in a concert. Chimney Rock was beautiful. We took an elevator to the top, and hiked to a water fall then hiked down the mountain to our car. We had thought about hiking up, but were glad we didn't when we realized how steep it was going down!

Our third day was a 4.5 hour drive to Fayetteville, WV. We stayed at this really cool resort called ACE. It's an 'adventure resort.' I really liked the idea. They had a lake with all sorts of inflatables, a slide, and a zip line! You could also arrange rock climbing, rafting, caving, and all sorts of other adventures there. We 'watched' fire works that night. It was raining so we sat in the vans to watch them, and everyone in my car slept right on through them. Well the rain continued all through the night, and for kids sleeping in tents (that leaked) it was not a happy night. Which made for a really unhappy morning. And extraordinarily unhappy kids. They were such grumpy pants that we canceled our mud obstacle course activity for the day and hoped that the next day would bring sun. We ended up touring the New River Bridge which is the 2nd highest vehicular bridge in the world. And driving down along the river, which was really beautiful.

And sun we had. It was a beautiful day! We spent the night in a cabin, on beds, which allowed everyone a better night sleep and a better mood. We started the day whitewater rafting down the New River, which was super fun. Everyone had a good time and we came back to ACE ate lunch, then started the mud obstacle course. I was the photographer! Which meant I didn't do it. The kids had fun though and the boys even did it a second time to beat some kind of record! The kids were muddy and wet but feeling good about completing the course in good time. We showered and headed to Charlotte. We ended up getting there late at night, and realized we were given the wrong address to the camp ground. So, we ended up at motel 6. Which all the kids were super happy about. Like the 2 nights of camping they had done were just more than they could handle. lol. Our non-smoking rooms had ashtrays turned upside down with a no smoking sign on it. It was a little smokey in there strangely enough!

We only slept in Charlotte, and the next morning left for Charleston, SC. We hit up the aquarium and then had our fancy dinner. The kids were convinced we would force them to sleep in the tents in the rain again and were grumbling about how mean we were. We had our fancy dinner that night at a restaurant near the aquarium. We were the only ones there and had the whole restaurant to ourselves. It was fun to be showered, wearing normal clothes and have makeup on. We all enjoyed a nice dinner and some funny moments. One of our kids hit on the bartender and got up on stage and sang to her. lol.

Our final day we went to Fort Sumtner, where the civil war began. It was interesting, but hot, and everyone was tired. The ferry ride back rocked all of us to sleep. We then began the 6 hour drive home. And as soon as the vans were cleaned out, and the kids were gone, i went home and slept for 12 hours.