New River Gorge Bridge

New River Gorge Bridge, West Virginia

We white water rafted nearby this bridge! TJ, our amazing White Water Rafting Guide, invited the rafters on our boat to return in October for "Bridge Day" to witness folks parachuting from this bridge. He says the best seat in the "house" for that event is on the river...in the raft!

On the back of a beautiful place mat I purchased while sightseeing (by land) during our West Virginia mountain trip, it says:

"You are visiting one of West Virginia's most scenic attractions. Two of the country's outstanding landmarks, one natural and one-made-made are combined to make this spectacular unforgettable view.......The New River Gorge is one of man's engineering and structural marvels. The bridge, the second highest in the United States, rises 876 feet above the rapids (over 325 feet higher than the Washington Monument)...."

Note: The Royal Gorge Bridge in Colorado is the highest.

This site invites you to: "Join tens of thousands of visitors (October 20, 2007) as you walk across the longest, single-span steel arch bridge (in the western hemisphere) and take in the views from 876 feet up in the air." It's "One of America's Top One Hundred Festivals."

The site goes on to explain that...

"The 3,030-foot New River Gorge Bridge took three years to complete and cost nearly $37 million. Because of the chosen arch design, and the depth of the gorge, steel was moved into position by trolleys running on three inch diameter cables stretched between two 330-foot towers. More than 88 million pounds of steel are incorporated. Michael Baker Jr., Inc. was the design engineer company for the structure, which was built by the American Bridge Division of US Steel. Its cor-ten steel will never need painting. The span arches across the New River, among the oldest rivers in North America, considered to be America's best whitewater."

Wow! How exciting that we got to explore this bridge by sea and by land during our recent trip! The mountain fun was non-stop! :-)

Smiles,

Penny

God's Mountain Art

I am having a moment of reflection and basking in the fact that I recently experienced this type of scenery firsthand. God's art is breathtaking! I feel so blessed to have explored this territory in West Virgnina.

Thank you, God! I am overflowing with love and appreciation for the gift of nature and the many forms of art, health and healing it provides. How blessed I feel to have set foot on each of the spots shown in these pictures and to have had the opportunity to expose my son to such beauty as well! I remain in awe of just how beautiful this world is! I embrace it wholly.

With Much Love!

Mountain Adventures Continued

Tuesday Greetings, It's the day after returning home from a fabulous mountain trip. So far, I'm feeling in somewhat of a bitter-sweet mood, however....I'm truly thankful for this recent phenomenal travel experience I had with my son and our friends, but also desiring to still be functioning, perhaps even living (for at least part of the year), in the mountains. I haven't quite adjusted, physically or mentally, to being back at sea level. I have happy and sad feelings trying to somehow co-exist. (Let's see who wins!) :-) Writing about the experience soothes me, though, so here I am remembering riding a Zip Line through through the mountain air and landing in the cool water of the lake!

Exactly a week ago, Christy, Caleb, Dalton and I joyfully, prayerfully, and giddily set off at about 8:30 a.m., in Christy's eco-friendly Hybrid car for a 9-hour journey to the Appalachian Mountains in West Virginia. Our destination: ACE Adventure Center. Christy had visited that area for a similar trip about 11 years ago, and this year, when wanting to create a memorable vacation for her son, she kindly invited Caleb and me to join them. She had no idea that for many months I had been deeply craving a visit to the mountains. I owe so much thanks to her for helping me to manifest such a burning desire of mine. I have now witnessed the mountains in ways I hadn't even imagined! Christy, as I told you, everyone needs a friend like you! Thank you for being in my life! Our friendship has grown even stronger and the trip is forever etched in my heart and mind.

On the way to the Appalachian Mountains, we stopped overnight in North Carolina and spent the late afternoon and night with Christy's generous friends, Deena and Andy! Heartfelt thanks to them for welcoming us into their home and making us feel so comfortable. Their neighbor who had visited ACE back in October, brought a DVD of his white water trip over so that we could get a "taste" of one of the wild activities we would be experiencing in the mountains. I was somewhat apprehensive about the white water rafting activity that Christy was gong-ho about, but saw from the video that regardless of my uncertainty about it, it was sure to be fun....even if it meant somewhat nervous fun! :-)

The next morning, we were back in the car for the final three to four hour leg of the trip to ACE. We could literally taste what was to come, especially when we started to see the mountain scenery as we drove along winding roads, traveling up and downhill often. "Mommy, can I call Daddy to tell him how awesome the mountains look?" Caleb asked. The scenery was indeed incredible. We oohed and aahed the whole way. I often let out screams of delight because this was really happening. Christy giggled at me and, at times, revealed her own ways of communicating excitement, such as rubbing her hands together in anticipation of great fun!

Eventually, we found ourselves on an even narrower winding road that reminded me of some of Bermuda's narrow, hilly roads. That road ran through a residential area with older homes lined up along it and led us to ACE's Welcome Center where we would check-in and receive the key to our log cabin, our sleeping quarters for the next five nights.

The Loft! Each time I went up to the loft, I felt as though I was climbing the stairs to a tree house! Fun!

After driving higher up the mountain and identifying our cabin, then picking out our rooms and realizing that the accommodations more than met our expectations, our first activity at ACE would be at the lake where the boys were itching to take part in the many varied activities there from riding a Zip Line high in the air down into the water, to holding on to a silver triangle (in Zip Line fashion) and swinging into the water, to sliding down a huge water slide and other slides, to climbing an iceberg, to jumping on a water trampoline, to running an obstacle course from one trampoline to another, and the list goes on.

As the boys got acclimated that first day to mountain lake life by water, Christy and I hung out on the land around the lake as we chatted to each other, other guests and relaxingly got an overall feel for the place. The majority of the folks we encountered seemed to be talking about White Water Rafting....Our all-day trip (6 1/2 hours) for Day 2.

Stay tuned for our adventure down the New River Gorge by raft. What a wild ride it was! Fortunately, I'm here to tell about it! :-)

See you tomorrow!

Penny

Team Raw's Mountain Adventures

We have safely returned from an absolutely amazing, invigorating trip to the Appalachian Mountains in West Virginia where we were about 3,252 feet above sea level. There, at ACE Adventure Center, we white water rafted, rock climbed, rappelled 80 feet, hiked, slept in a log cabin, and so much more! What an incredible time we had! We have arrived home a day early because we decided not to stop overnight in South Carolina during the drive home.

This week, I will be documenting, a bit at a time, our adventures featuring my dear, adventurous friend Christy (below right), my brave and agile son Caleb (blue shirt), Christy's loving and courageous son Dalton (pictured with my son), and mountain/rock-climbing-loving me (brown shirt)!


We often referred to our group as "Team Raw" during our mountain experiences. Although not everyone in our "Team Raw" group is raw-vegan, each person has a respect for raw-veganism and agreed that it was the green smoothies that pumped us up and got us going on the day of our

rock-climbing adventure, an activity I cannot wait to blog about. (As I thought I would, I LOVE rock climbing. Absolutely love it...and so does my son pictured on left. That's me on the right near the end of rappelling 80 feet.)

I hope you'll stop by each day this week for a glimpse of our week-long mountain trip.


With a ton of Mountain Love!

Penny & Team Raw

(Trip and Team Name Created By Christy!)