When I finished my Master's degree in May, Casey's family was kind enough to give me an exceptional graduation gift to send both Casey and I on a whitewater rafting adventure on the New River. For as much as I love to hike, I'm not a true adventurer at heart and although I was extremely appreciative of the gift, I was more than just a little terrified. However, I'm also about as frugal as they come and the thought of putting a gift like this to waste was not in the question, so we booked our adventure with ACE adventure resort last weekend. When we arrived it felt reminiscent of summer camp as a kid. There was a lake filled with giant, bouncy, water toys, a long gravel road with a grassy camping area at the top, a dining hall, a ping pong table, corn hole, and a big pavilion filled with picnic tables. The whitewater trip on the lower New turned out to be surprisingly a ton of fun and I made it through the full day without taking a swim (although everyone in our raft did get plenty wet).
In any case, the resort also coincidentally happened to be just down the road from my cousin, so we met up on Sunday and he showed us around. He took us to Long Point Trail, an easy 3 mile, nearby hike with an astounding view of the New River Gorge Bridge. Being an amazing naturalist, he was kind enough to help me learn to identify some common plants. I'm embarrassed to say that for as much as I hike, until yesterday, I couldn't so much as identify a white oak versus a red oak.
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| View of the New River Gorge Bridge |
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| Casey, Paul, and I at the overlook |
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| A white oak leaf |
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| Chestnut oak leaf |
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| American chestnut tree leaves |
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| Beech tree leaves |
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| White oak bark |
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| Goldenrod |
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| Red oak leaf |
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