Josh and I shoved off today for our “Week of Rivers”. But since the south east is so dry it’s going to look more like a “Week of Ocoee”. We did run the Pigeon earlier and that was fun. Now we are in Sevierville with a busted water pump and an overheated Jeep. It’s all good though because we stopped at Advanced Auto and they called in a mechanic for us. 4th of July and all he’s going to hook us up. Price sounds pretty reasonable too. So far so good. Ocoee tomorrow…
Later in the evening…
It’s late and the jeep is not fixed. We are now parked at a sit and sleep furniture and matress superstore overlooking the car dealership. Fireworkks are going off all around Pigeon Forge and the Sevierville area. We are waiting for morning so we can get this water pump fixed. Our mechanic at Autozone couldn’t get the fan disassembled so now we are going with plan B. Hopefully we can get this fixed quickly in the morning and get down to the Ocoee to meet up with the others.
Josh is cooking dinner behind the car and I am getting ready to sleep in the passenger seat. Kayaking is always an adventure. Even off of the river.
Day 02 & 03
On Thursday after a very long wait on getting the jeep fixed, this after sleeping behind a furniture store, we finallly made it to the Ocoee. The water was about to be shut off so with just 30 minutes of release left we hurried and shoved off.
We met John and Chris at the put in and booked it down. The water holds for about an hour after they shut it off so we made it down with no problems.
We camped at Thunder Rock. Good times were by all.
Right now I am relaxing at Hell Hole after day 03. Josh and John are making their second lap and I am eating and surfing. More good times were had today.
Day 04
Today some more Vikings rolled in while some others headed off to the Cheoah. We stayed at the Ocoee for another run on the middle section.
I was a little off today with my rolling, having a close call at Broken Nose. I rolled in the entrance and barely caught the last eddy before the right side. Then just below that I flipped again on Slice and Dice. I did manage to roll up without hitting the rocks like I did on day 02, but it took too many roll attempts. It all boiled down to the fact that after 3 days of straight paddeling I was dog tired. I manned up for the rest of the run with no problems, but I played much less to save my energy.
4 days of paddling has been great. I’ll probably take it easy tomorrow the last day.
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