On a whim, I accompanied one of my friends to Pennsylvania for the weekend to partake in some fall activities (since we don’t really have fall in Miami).
We arrived early Saturday morning, and had to drive straight from the airport to the white water rafting company to arrive on time, 8AM check in!
White Water Rafting
We booked our white water rafting expedition through Ace Adventure Resort in West Virginia, along the New River Gauley. We did the full day lower Gauley trip which was the easier of the two options, the other being the upper Gauley meant for experienced white water rafters. I was dead nervous since this is my first time trying white water rafting, while my other friends had been before, and I am afraid of the water!
The resort we were doing the rafting at is also a family resort during the summer, but the rafting seems to be one of its main attractions that is open during the fall. The New River Gauley is a normally docile river, but every weekend in the fall a damn that has been placed at the head of the river is opened in preparation for the winter. When the damn is opened is when the rafting takes place because a huge amount of water comes speeding down the river.
After our early check-in, we proceeded to get our wet suits on. We could’ve gone without wet suits, but because it was so cold they recommended everyone wear one. I’m glad I did too because it was freezing in the water!
We then met the rest of our group for the day and set out in a big school bus to the top of our route.
Our rafts were sent ahead to meet us at the site, and we had to carry them down to the river.
The rafting was difficult but a lot more fun than I had expected! My group didn’t fall in once, but other groups had a lot of flipping into the water. This came down to how communicative your group was, and fortunately for me we had a great group and even better group leader (part of the Ace Resort team).
We stopped after 2 hours for lunch and it was a welcome relief to take a break and enjoy the scenery around us.
By the end, we had rafted for 4 hours and it was one of the best and most exhausting trips of my life! It was quite cold and my hands were numb by the end, but the trade off with going later in the season also means the trees are all changing colors. There was an hour bus ride back to the resort where our cars and stuff was, and almost everyone was asleep in minutes.
Camping
Once we had showered and changed into warm clothes, we were off to find food. By far the best food joint looked like Pies & Pints according to Google, and how right Google was! The pizza was AAHMAZING! It probably helped the big appetite we had worked up from rafting as well.
It was getting very late at this point, and we had made reservations at a campsite for the evening. One big draw to this campsite is they provided the tent and sleeping bags/ pillows which we had none of since we took a cheap flight that allowed us only one small backpack each.
The tent was already set up for us, and the office where we checked in had all the supplies to make s’mores, including the firewood, and we were warming a feet and bellies by the fire in no time.
Apple Picking
Up and at ’em bright and early! We didn’t have to deconstruct the tent the next morning, another huge blessing to renting the tent from the campsite directly. We all slept so well despite it being cold out, likely because of how tired we were.
Our flight was in the evening so we took the rest of the day to do the best fall activity there is: apple picking!
We settled on Norman’s Orchard since it was nearby Pittsburg, which is where we were flying out.
This lovely little orchard was exactly what we were looking for. There weren’t many apple trees with apples left but we were also coming in at the end of the season. We spent a great afternoon here, bought a lot of apples, and had some apple cider to go.
And just like that, in under 48 hours, we left Pennsylvania and were back home in Miami just in time for the workweek to start.
I love doing little weekend trips like this! It makes me feel like I am not having to sacrifice either traveling or researching, both of which I love to do.
Until next time! xx
