I woke up early because of the train that went RIGHT by our campsite. I got out of the tent to notice that the river was a lot bigger than I thought. I went to the back of the teardrop and pulled out fishing gear. I woke up my mom on accident getting out fishing gear. So she let me go down the the river and fish. NO LUCK. So, I then headed back up and got some hot cocoa. My dad had gotten up but my brother was still sound asleep. My dad started cooking breakfast when Elias woke up. We ate and tried a little bit more fishing but didn’t get a bite. In the meantime my dad called a river guide that knew a lot about the New River so we could find the pictures. He send the guide a bunch of the pictures of the PA art to him so he could see and he knew most of them. So the guide ended up coming to us with two canoes. I saw him and my dad talking for a little bit, he was very nice and helpful. My dad said to load up and we left with canoes and gear on a trailer. He drove us to the first stop we needed to get in. We unloaded the canoes and slid them into the water.
Putting in to cross river
We jumped in and paddled across the river. It was so pretty crossing. When we had got to the other side, we slid our boats onto shore and got out. We saw a GIANT fish skull where we docked. We had to walk up to the railroad to find our first picture. Suddenly a train came around the corner.
Train!
Thankfully it was just the engine so it wasn’t going to be this looooonng train going by squeaking and making all sorts of sounds. In the picture, it had these LARGE plates of rock sticking out of the mountain side. They ran from the top all the way down and through the river. They were amazing when we found them.
We had to step off the train track and slide down the bank to the edge of the river to find it. There it was! The spot was on a small rock on the edge of the river. It looked almost EXACTLY the same! No erosion!
Got it!
We got up and took a picture of it because we had to head back quick. We crossed the river and loaded our canoes up onto the trailer. He drove us to our campsite so we could put in there and paddle down while finding the other spots along the river. So we slid them into the water and we were off! The first spot was right at our campsite we tried to get a picture of it, but we decided that we could walk to get it. We kept canoeing and saw so many AMAZING rock formations.
Rock outcropping
We soon saw a white blob way way way ahead. Eventually we got closer, and it was two swans! They were amazing! They swam past us once we got pretty close. About an hour later we found the next place. We found a place to “dock” our boats and jumped out.
Paddles high!
We looked for this tree that was in the picture so that we could take the photo. We found it but it had gotten a lot taller and you could tell how it was and that it was definitely the tree.
The tree
We took a photo and paddled upstream a little bit to find another perspective that we missed. We got to the bank and saw the rocks from the side of the mountain like the book. We hurried after that because we needed to get out of the river because it was starting to rain. We paddled HARD. We were cold, wet, and hungry. Finally, we saw our guide and got out. On the way back to the campsite he told us about this amazing sounding restaurant so of course we had to go. He dropped us off at our campsite and we drove to the place. IT WAS AMAZING. It was an old warehouse building that turned into a great fantastic amazing restaurant! It was also practically in the middle of NOWHERE. It was nice to relax there a little while.
I was soooooooooooooooooooooooooo hungry, so I ordered a HUGE pizza. My dad reached over the candle on the table to give my mom a sample of his food when his sleeve caught fire. I was the only one who noticed it, he didn’t even know! So I said very calmly “Uh ,Daddy? Your arm is on fire.” He casually said “Oh, so it is” and blew it out. He thanked me for noticing before it burnt him good. I was so tired that night – I was glad to find my way to a nice warm sleeping bag.