A little over a month ago, we took a trip with our aunt and uncle.  We all like to get outside and kayak, hike, swim, etc, so this was going to be a great trip doing a little of all of that.

The plan was to head to Stonewall Jackson Resort in Roanoke West Virginia (not Roanoke, East Virginia) Friday morning, where we would rent a pontoon boat and tube/swim/boat on Stonewall Jackson Lake.  The next day, we planned to drive to the Eastern Panhandle of WV where we would spend all day tubing down the South Branch of the Potomac River.

Does anything ever go as planned?

Nope.

Well, we did leave Charleston on Friday morning, but it was raining as we pulled out.  Still, we drove to Stonewall Resort, about 2 hours away.  Just as we pulled into the resort, the clouds parted, the sun came out and our day was saved!  Stonewall Jackson Lake, we discovered, has a carp population, to say the least.  So, we watched the carp a little and headed out on the boat.  It was an absolutely great time and we trolled around the lake taking time to swim here and there.  The water was nice and we just had a wonderful time.

We returned the boat and decided to use the bicycle rental pass we got for staying at the resort.  The lady at the counter warned us of a coming storm and that we simply had to be back by 8pm.  She was certain that at exactly 8pm we would be under fire, so to speak.  We looked that the radar and sort of figured she was crazy.  Sure a storm was coming but it was a ways off.

So we rode our bikes and had a lot of fun.  We decided Abigail was not quite ready to drive a car as she was a bit wild.  Poor Emily got the only non-mountain bike so she worked hard on the hills.  She chose the bike though so…

Anyhow, our time was up so we returned the bikes.  At 8:03 pm, I’ll be darned if the storm didn’t drop!  We sat in the library at the resort and played cards while the storm raged a bit.  The outdoor wedding on the patio below the library was sort of…ruined I guess.  It was impressive and the rain was substantial.

With as much rain as we got and with the forecast for Saturday to be full or rain, we sort of figured that the plan to tube the Potomac was out of the question as it would be raging.  We worked out plan b which ended up being a blast…stay tuned…