By Patty Wilber
Last weekend, Suzette and I took a whirlwind trip east, to West Virginia.
We flew!
Ok, who really cares that is was West Virginia? We went to see Sydney!
Selfie on Campus!
We did all kinds of things: looked at antique glass (Morgantown had several glass factories so there is a lot of glass. I bought a pink water glass in which to drink wine), went to the western horse team facility (the coach was very personable!), walked up and down and up and down the hills and stairs (wow, I am out of shape!), went to Cooper’s rock (that one deserves some pictures), and went zip-lining in the University Forest!
Zip-lining is nothing like Bungee Jumping. Zip-lining is fun!
All geared up! Me, Sydney, Megan (Syd’s roomie) and Suzette.
We got a little training, then we zipped from platform to platform–the longest being over 900 feet with speeds up to 25 mph. We were very daring.
The nice thing was that for this zip-line, you just step off the platform (NO JUMPING) and glide away through the forest canopy….
Alas, after not that long, you have to concentrate and use your hand to break your speed (we were trained, remember) so you don’t crash into the next tree a la “George, George, George of the Jungle strong as he can be…watch out for that …TREE!”
(Well, we actually had a leader that had a safety slower downer mechanism so even if we didn’t slow ourselves, we were saved!)
The adventure also had a log suspension bridge–very stable–not scary,
The suspension bridge!
and after the last ride, we got to repel off the platform to the ground through thin air!
Yes, it was an automatic repeller…all we really had to do was get off the platform without smashing our teeth on the edge.
Megan, repelling.
Very fun!
Cooper’s Rock
We walked out of a dense forest to this view!
It was a great trip.
I was happy to get back to the dry sparseness of the high desert. You CAN have too many trees!
Next adventure: Gun bearer for Jim’s muzzle loader hunt. Penny, Cometa and Lacey are going with us to Camp Kingsbury! LT was rejected because she would probably get tangled in the high line or some other drama-filled injury-inducing event!
