RIVERCHICA

Many people have scratched their heads, asking me what exactly it is about Friendsville that’s been keeping me here so long.  As much as I would like to maintain it’s purely based on a love for the Upper Yough and all my new friends, there’s more to the story.

I met a certain gentleman on the river.  Well, that’s not exactly true (the meeting on the river part, not the gentleman part).  We met on the curb, right outside the rafting company he works at as a, brace yourself LVP.  .  .  raft guide!  The first day I padded the Upper Yough, he came over to talk to me.  Something about how he spoke with his quiet, slow voice with the slightest hint of an Appalachia accent made me feel almost immediately comfortable.

What started on the curb turned out to be a pretty sweet summer romance.   When paddling, I would steal glances of him talking to his crew and confidently steering his raft down the river.   Off the river, we camped, concocted what passed as meals on the cooker, and enjoyed all the fun times I’ve been writing about here, from coaster riding to tank climbing to a new appreciation for swimming in lakes.

Turns out, our shared adventures may not end just yet.  We’re on a little road trip to check out Asheville, North Carolina!

Shots from the road:

Driving through the Appalachian Mountains:North Carolina!

It started raining when we dropped into Asheville and we saw a rainbow (which I wasn’t quick enough to catch with my camera):

As the weekend approached, more and more people made off-hand references about the derby featured on Saturday night at the Garrett County Fair.  Having never seen a demolition derby, the excitement seemed a little over the top.  But in the spirit of really embracing new opportunities, I got out my best flannel shirt and jeans and headed to see what all the fuss was about.

After a quick stop to fuel up on all the fair favorites at the local band booster food booth, we headed to the stands.  Derby fans packed the stands, and it took a brief search to find empty seats.  Once the drivers were announced and the cars began bashing into one another, I was captivated.  After seeing a few rounds, it seems incredible that demolition derbying is a legal activity in the States.  The drivers would bash in a car until that car couldn’t run, at which point there was often flames coming out of the engine.  The driver would sit helplessly while the derby continued around him.  The bashing continued until only one car was left standing, and the proud driver then announced the winner.

After one round, I wasn’t going anywhere.  So fascinated was I by the old wrecks that these dedicated folks converted into derby cars by removing all unnecessary weight like windows, extra seats and then carefully painted dark colors to camouflage in the night so as to better sneak up on other cars, that I began to consider my own derby debut.

The Lost Girls are three twenty-somethings who quit their high-profiled New York jobs to travel the world together.  This week I am t!here Lost Girl of the week – click here to read all about it!

All this talk of paddling the Upper Yough probably makes you wonder if there is a Lower Yough.  And there is!  It’s a lovely seven mile stretch of class II and III, with some long flat water bits, about thirty minutes from Frendsville in Ohiopyle, Pennsylvania.  The paddling scene on the Lower is quite a bit different, with several companies renting rafts to anyone off the street.  The river more closely resembles the crowded chaos of the my own local run, the South Fork of the American River, than the wild and scenic section of the Upper Yough.

Still, on days when I want to work on skills or my body just needs a break, the Lower is a good option.  The entire Lower can be paddled, or, for the lazy paddle wanting to avoid the flat water bits and setting shuttle, the Loop can be paddled.  The Loop contains most  of the action, with five of the best rapids taking place, is a mile long and ends really close to where it starts, thereby making it unnecessary to set shuttle.

The park service only allows the waterfall at the beginning of the run to be paddled one day a year.  Rumor has it that the park system is going to allow paddlers to run the waterfalls in groups of at least three paddlers.

We saw this green snake at the put-in:

After spending a day on the water, the local pub serves up good food and local bands.

Not to be outdone by Terry’s tasty butternut squash and Ina’s light, summer pasta, one of their neighbors offered to host a cooking lesson at his house the following night.  We julieanned zuchinni so that we could use it as a substitute for pasta, which we topped with shredded chicken with mole and avocado slices.

Jim showing telling me about mole:

Terry julieanned zuchinni:

The delicious results:

And:

As the summer nights become perceptibly shorter, my curbside friendships have deepened, with locals welcoming me into their homes and sharing intimate details of their lives with me.   I am grateful for the many offers to use folks’ showers, invitations to share meals, and even opportunities to sleep on a real bed (an almost unthought of luxury for someone who has been camping for the past two months).  

 That’s how I came to meet Ina, an eighty year old local legend, who is a mother, grandmother, drummer, artist, culinary extraordinaire, and has the ability to immediately put you at ease and make you feel welcome with her smile.  One of my now good friends invited me to her house for a cooking lesson after I confided in her that I was unable to muster any enthusiasm to eat rice and kabobs,

my one signature dish, night after night.  Lucky for me, Ina joined us for a night of chopping, measuring, stirring and, alas, eating.  

Ina with her pasta dish (tomato, basil, garlic, olive oil, and mozzarella marinated uncooked, add pasta of choice):

Terry gave me a cooking lesson on how to make butternut squash into soup:

End result:

In the beginning of July, my family met up with me in Fayetteville for a week of family of family vacationing.  I wrote a guest blog for the Vacation Gals, which you can read by clicking here.

Clad in long black fleece pants, a long sleeve dry top with extra elbow padding and of course my white full-faced helmet, when dressed to go kayaking I more closely resembled someone ready to go off to battle than someone having a good time on the river.  My new rafting buddies lost no opportunity to tease me about how hot I must be and I can’t even count all the storm trooper comments.

Thanks to a shopping spree at the IR factory in Confluence, where you can shop their blems and receive huge savings, I now look like a Mid-Atlantic boater.  I bought boating pants and rash guards for $10 each!

New look #1:

New look #2:

We spent a perfect afternoon hanging out at Valley Falls State Park, where we hucked ourselves off a small waterfall on the Tygart River.  Two of our friends from the rafting company took Sarah and I on and gave us a quick boofing tutorial before showing us the line.

Here are a couple of shots Nate Calhoun took:

When the sun began to set and our bellies grumbled, we made a rather tasty tofu stir fry.  The boys grumbled at first, but later admitted that they quite liked tofu.

Dinner Prep:

Who knew cooking rice requires such a face:

YUM!:

Reading about the recent flash floods in Leh, India sent chills down my spine.  On August 6th, 2010, flash floods killed over one hundred people in the area.  Communication systems are down though, so there is no way of knowing the exact number of people dead or missing.  My plan was to travel to Leh earlier this month to trek and kayak, but I instead decided to stay on the east coast of the U.S.  From the comforts of a friend’s house in Friendsville, I feel waves of gratitude, feeling like I am exactly where I ought to be.