Vacation Day 8–Whitewater Rafting and Vaudeville

For our very last day of vacation, we drove over to the Ocoee River for some awesome whitewater rafting! 

I had never been whitewater rafting before.  So you see where I am in the boat. Nice and comfy at the back.

Smartest decision ever.  Because when he hit the course that had been specifically designed for the 1996 summer Olympics, you see who stayed in the boat…

I will admit that Nathan stayed in too.  But only just barely.  The funniest part is only minutes before he had been sitting in the front, but then switched with the younger kid so that he could enjoy the front for a bit.

It was a seriously good time.  I loved it.  Even if it was overcast and cold for most of the day.  We were so pumped up on adrenaline most of the time, you didn’t even notice the cold!

Our guide was such a character.  You can kind of see that by what he is wearing.  He dressed up a little fancier that day because it was the last day that the upper portion of the river would be open for rafting.  Most of the water in the Ocoee is held behind a damn and is used to produce electricity.  But on Saturdays during the summer months they open up the damn to allow some white water rafting on the upper portion of the river.  So we were lucky to get to do both the upper and middle Ocoee.

Because during the week, the upper portion of the river has very little water in it, lots of animals find there way down into the river bed.  Especially things like snakes and lizards.  So when they filled up the river, the snakes and such were all floating up on the water.  One snake even found it’s way into one of the boats that we were with.  I’m so glad it wasn’t ours.  I would have DIED!!!!!!!!!

It was so fun and I’m so glad we went.  I can’t wait to do it again someday!

After our rafting we headed back to Chattanooga.  That evening we went downtown to find a fun local place to eat.  We came across this place called the Vaudeville Café.  Turns out it is a comedy murder mystery dinner theatre.  We didn’t have tickets, but the lady at the desk said we could hang around for a little while and see if any of their reservations didn’t show up.  Sure enough, a table was left open and we were able to get in. 

It was such a good time.  We laughed for 2 hours straight.  As the name of the café would imply, it was mostly silly slap stick humor, but we loved it.  We saw an Italian-Redneck Wedding murder mystery.  The girl that played the redneck bride was hilarious!  And the food was pretty good too.  It was a simple Italian buffet, and while not amazing or anything, it was better than some other buffets I’ve been to.  The tickets to get in were $26.50 a person, which I thought was very reasonable considering it was a two hour show and it included dinner.  So if you are ever in Chattanooga – I highly recommend it!