Over the summer, I have promised myself to be more adventurous; therefore, resulting in an awesome and highly unfortunate tale. A few friends and myself went to Chattanooga to go White Water Rafting in the Ocoee River. We were meant to leave at 7AM for the shuttle to get us there before 11 to check in, and get prepared. Things did not exactly go to plan.
A couple of us were late getting to the shuttle, and we ended up carpooling. It wasn't a huge deal, but events would have gone differently had we been to the shuttle on time. My friends and I all rode together, and it was a three hour drive.
I was trying to fall asleep in the backseat with my boyfriend because of how early it was for us. We were two hours into the drive, and we were on the interstate. A couple cars ahead, someone brake-checked the guy in front of us, and he also had a trailer. It was a domino effect.
He slammed on his brakes, causing us to slam on ours, and so on. Well, we were waking up to the screeching brake noise, which was absolutely terrifying, but we were fine. Fast forward two seconds, and we heard a boom. We were pushed forward into the truck trailer. We got out to see what the damage was, and the trunk was permanently opened, and the back bumper was on the ground.
We went to check on the girl behind us, and her airbag went off and her horn was still on. I immediately assumed the worst, but she was okay. We were all okay. We were just sandwiched between it all, and the car that we were in took everything from the impact.
Once the police officer arrived, we handled everything in the legal aspect, but all I could think of was how much damage could have been done if the person behind us didn't stop at all, and how hurt everyone would have been. We were extremely lucky, but we were all resigned to going home, even though we were two hours away from home.
Somehow we found out that we were still able to go rafting. I thought there would be no way, considering our tickets included catering, the rafting, and an additional adventure. I thought we could not make up any of that, but we were able to. We, unfortunately, missed out on the catering and the additional adventure, but we deserved to have a good time considering what we just went through. So we got a rental car and the police officer escorted us to the airport to retrieve the rental car.
We drove the rest of the way there, and then had to wait to on the rafting because they weren't sure if they would have any open spots. So we got lunch, came back, and waited on the verdict. We got so lucky, and managed to squeeze into this group of 40 people. It was exactly what we needed to end the day. We got soaked, we got to swim, we laughed until it hurt, and now we all have an experience we will all remember together. Upon it all, I was glad that we were all safe and able to build our adrenaline up during these intense rapids.
I could not have picked a better group to go through all of this with. Though, I highly recommend that anyone should and could go white water rafting, because it's calm, and fun, and active. Do wear sunscreen, and be open to all that the experience has to offer. Do everything that they tell you to do, and have fun with it! It's probably one of the most adventurous and enjoyable experiences I have ever had. And if you are determined like I was, make sure your feet are latched hard into the raft! Stay tuned for my skydiving experience that will happen this summer!
