My camera work was so bad on that video. I don't know if you could see them or not, but a man and woman had walked out into the middle of the river to fish. The water was only about knee high. They carried a cooler with them and just plopped it down in the water.
We sat on the porch, Tim drinking coffee and me with tea, just relaxing. Tim used the Maxwell House coffee that was in the kitchen, and he said it was awful. After a bit, we walked down to the Cafe for breakfast. Here it is, the only restaurant in town.
I think I actually took this photo as we were leaving the restaurant. Notice how the weather has already improved. Saturday would turn out to be a beautiful day weather-wise, just like Friday.
On the way to the Cafe, we ran into our neighbors again, the ones with the 3 dogs. It turns out they're from Morganton. They went to Fries a few years ago to do genealogy research, as the man's family is from there. They saw the house four years ago, made an offer, and bought it as a vacation home! The man has a lot of relatives in Fries that he'd never met before. It was an interesting story, and they were very nice. We learned that their son went to ASU and that they're considering renting their home out. (They've been talking to our host.) Their house is really cute and it's clear they've really worked on it. They told us to come by and they'd show us the inside, but we never took them up on it. Just weren't sure if they really meant it. Plus, we didn't have a lot of extra time.
We continued on to the Cafe after talking to them. Our breakfast there was just okay. The restaurant actually has beautiful views, but we couldn't see them because the windows in the room we were sitting in were all covered with Halloween decorations. There was a group from Chicago in an adjacent room that had better views. All of them were wearing either a shirt, jacket, or cap of a Chicago sports team.
After breakfast, we walked back to the house and we could see everyone setting up for the festival. We saw Denny setting up under a canopy, and just started chuckling. He's apparently the unofficial mayor of Fries, has his hand in everything.
We drove over to New River Outdoor Adventures to ask about the kayaking trip. I'd read about them online. They rent kayaks, canoes, and bikes. The owner was walking back into the store as we approached. He is a double amputee and had two metal curved legs with tennis shoes on the bottom. I can't remember his name, but he was just as Denny had described-- very friendly and very knowledgeable.
We explained that we wanted to either canoe or kayak, but weren't sure which. We told him that we were beginners. He immediately said, "Don't canoe. It's too easy to tip over." We considered a tandem kayak, but he said no to that also. He said those are also very easy to tip over. Said we each needed our own kayak. So that settled that. I wasn't going to argue with someone whose goal was to keep us from tipping over!
Several different kayak tours are offered, but we chose Trip 1 after talking with the owner. We had thought that would be best after reading about it online, and he agreed. You're shuttled to a put-in point on the river, and you paddle/float down the river back to the outfitter's. It usually takes about 45 min to an hour. I liked that the description said "very little paddling required." We signed the waiver and said we'd be back at 2pm to do the trip.
In the other side of the same building, there's a deli / convenience store. We went over there to get Tim a toothbrush because he forgot his. We also wanted to check out what the deli offered. This is a picture of the kayak place. It doesn't look like much, but they knew their stuff. That blue van is what we rode in when going to the put-in spot.
On the way back to the house, we stopped at the Dollar General again so Tim could get some decent coffee for the coffeemaker. Dunkin Donuts was the best they had, so that's what we bought.
After we got back to the house, we realized that it was quickly getting very hot. After that morning fog burned off, the sun came out and the temperature really heated up. We decided to call the kayak place and see if we could just change clothes and go right back and start the trip. He said okay.
Tim said he wanted to take his phone with him, even though I suggested he NOT do that because...well...we were going to be in KAYAKS on the RIVER which is WATER, and WATER is not good for phones! He said he wanted to take it in case of an emergency, like if we needed help on the river. I still didn't think it was a good idea. I mean, we weren't going to be far from shore, and I figured there would always be somebody coming down the river in a kayak, canoe, or tube if we needed help. (I forgot to say that they also had tubing trips.)
But he was determined, so we decided to double-bag the phone (put it into two ziploc bags), and he put it in his pocket. We drove back to the kayak place, got our life jackets, paid (I think it was $55 per person), and we got in the van. The driver took us to a spot on the river that was directly in front of our rental house. He told us to paddle out to the middle of the river, then turn and head down river.
It was VERY rocky at the put-in spot. The water wasn't deep, so all the rocks stuck up out of the water. I had never kayaked in my life and didn't know how to steer. I was trying to paddle around and over the rocks, which was very difficult, and I kept getting all turned around. I was sideways, backwards, you name it. There was a family on the bank up the river, throwing tennis balls in for their lab. I'm sure we gave them quite a show, as Tim had difficulty staying off the rocks also. When we talked about it later, we realized that we should have just walked out to the middle of the river, dragging our kayaks with us, and then started down the river. The water wasn't deep, as I said, and this would've been much easier. As it was, we had a very tough start.
When we finally got away from the rocks a little bit, Tim gave me some instructions on how to steer with the paddle, but it took a LOT of practice. I am, let's say, directionally-challenged, and it just did not make sense to me to hold a paddle one way in the water in order to go another way. I'm so dumb that I can't even describe it accurately. However, by the end of the kayak trip, I was doing okay. Not great, but okay.
After we got past most of the rocks, we really started to enjoy the trip. It seemed like we were hardly moving until we looked down at the water, and then we could tell we were floating right along with the current. We just stopped paddling and floated for much of the trip, only using our paddles to steer around rocks when we needed to.
Because the river was so calm, and we had begun to relax, Tim decided to take some pictures with his phone. Here I am on my very first kayaking adventure.
And here is some video he shot:
I must admit that even though I didn't want Tim to take his phone, I am so happy to have the video and picture. I don't know if you can hear me say on the video, "You better not drop that phone!" Well, you know what's coming, don't you?
I'm sure you heard Tim say that some "rapids" were coming so he better put the phone up. There were no rapids in this river; we just called them that. Every once in a while, there would be a line of rocks across the river that caused a little waterfall-looking thing that was 1-2 feet high. We had to steer between/over the rocks and go down the little waterfall. We called them rapids, but they weren't. But when you're a beginner, even that little bit of height causes concern.
So...Tim is quickly floating toward the "rapids" and he can't get his phone back in both ziploc bags in time, so he just put it in one bag and tried to shove it in the pocket of his shorts. He leaned over to the side, trying to straighten his leg out so he could get the phone down in his pocket, and -- you know what's coming-- he tipped his kayak over and fell out.
All I saw was a plastic bag floating down the river, so I yelled, "Your phone! Your phone!" He yelled back,"That's not my phone! That's just a bag! The phone's in my pocket!" He retrieves the bag anyway, gets back in the kayak, gets over the rocks, then pulls the bag with the phone out of his pocket. The bag had a hole in it. He must've caught it on a zipper or something. But he turned the phone on and it powered up! We later learned that you're not supposed to turn your phone on after it gets wet. You're supposed to leave it off and remove the battery, neither of which we did. We could actually hear his phone ding a couple of times as we continued down the river when he got texts or emails or something. So we were thinking, "Well, maybe it's gonna be okay."
We floated/paddled for over an hour. It was very fun and relaxing, except for being worried about the phone. We saw birds on rocks in the river, and cows standing on the banks. Then we saw cows standing in the river. That grossed me out, because if they're standing in the river, they're also pooping in the river. Eventually, we saw two kayakers behind us, but they never got very close to us. I forgot to mention that at the beginning of our trip, we saw someone tubing in front of us, but she was way down river and eventually disappeared from sight.
Finally, we were approaching the take-out spot. It was right at the outfitter's place, and near a bridge that crossed over the river. Tim wanted to get out first so that he could then help me. He thought I was right behind him, so he was trying to hurry. (In actuality, I was way back from him.) In his haste, he half-jumped, half-fell out of his kayak, then fell down into the water twice due to the strong current. A young boy of about 12 who was on the bank with his own kayak ran over to help Tim get his kayak out onto the bank. We thought the kid worked there, but he didn't. He was just a nice kid. Tim pulled my kayak over to the bank and helped me out.
The boy who had helped Tim had several fishing poles on his kayak. I asked if he was going fishing and had he caught anything so far. He said he had caught a pretty big "insert name of fish here". I don't know what it was, a blue something? Anyway, I couldn't believe this child was out on the river in a kayak alone. He looked quite young, but he also seemed happy as could be and quite competent.
Tim held up the bag with his phone in it, and it was about 1/3 full of water. As we walked back up to the outfitter's, he took the battery out. Oh, I almost forgot this irritating fact-- as Tim was pulling his kayak onto the bank, he noticed a dry storage compartment in the kayak! He could have put his phone in there! The van driver did not tell us anything about a storage compartment on the kayaks!!! He wasn't nearly as nice as the owner. He should've told us about storage, and he should've given us at least some basic instructions on steering. Loser.
We chatted with the owner when we went inside to turn in our life jackets. We didn't mention the phone. He asked if we'd do it again, and we said yes.
We stopped at the Dollar General AGAIN on the way home to buy a bag of rice. We'd both heard that if your phone gets wet, you should put it in a bag or bowl of rice to absorb the water. Tim also bought a bag of Pepperidge Farm goldfish. I think he needed comfort food. We were so hoping this would work...
You can't see it in the picture, but his car key is also in the bag. It's the battery-operated kind, so we were also concerned about that being ruined. As it turned out, the key was fine, which surprised me because it got completely soaked when water got into the ziploc bag. The phone, after sitting in rice for 24-48 hours, would turn on, and Tim could retrieve messages and stuff, but it would not charge. It shorted out every time he tried to plug the charger in. So....Tim now has a new Galaxy Note 8.
We both showered (I kept thinking about the cows in the water), got ready, and walked down to the festival which was in full swing. There was a band playing, people selling food, all kinds of booths set up, all in a grassy area right by the river. We actually got halfway there and had to go back to the house because we forgot our chairs.
When we finally made it, we thought we'd sit in front of where the band was playing, but they were really loud. AND, they sounded like the music in "Oh Brother Where Art Thou" except they were even more nasal-y with even stronger southern accents. I couldn't take it. We moved our chairs down to the bank of the river, literally just feet from the river, in the shade. Then we walked back up to the hot dog place where Denny was working and got hot dogs, chips, and drinks. We don't think he recognized us, even though we don't see how that could be true after the long and thorough tour he gave us the night before.
Here we are getting ready to enjoy our lunch.
This is the view looking back at the festival from our chairs. That red caboose is an ice cream shop!
It was nice and quiet down by the river, but we could still hear the band a little. It was a different band by this time, though, much more tolerable than the first group. After finishing our hot dogs, we got some ice cream at the caboose.
The lady said this was her last day of the season, so she only had 6 flavors left, and she wasn't making any milkshakes, sundaes, etc. We both got one scoop of strawberry. Yes, that's one scoop!
Went back to our chairs by the river and really enjoyed just sitting there eating our delicious ice cream. Then we decided to walk through the festival and look at the booths (which were not that great, if I'm honest.) Here are some of the things being sold at the booths: beeswax candles, fall floral arrangements, produce, essential oils, Mary Kay stuff, jewelry, pottery, yarn and things made from that yarn, like caps and shawls. There was one booth selling Peruvian food, and the woman looked like she was from Peru. How she ended up in Fries, I have no idea. I sampled the empanadas, and they were good.
Then we decided to sit on the bleachers and listen to the band for a while.
They had boards set up on the ground where people could come and dance. Some folks even had taps on their shoes, which you can hear in this video.
We enjoyed watching this for a while. It's not our kind of music necessarily, but it was interesting to watch/listen, and just observe. The culture of this little mill town in the mountains of VA was very evident. Tim and I joked that if Mama were there, she would've sat there all day, listening to the band and watching people dance. She might have even gotten up and danced herself! I liked watching this little old lady.
She wasn't making a lot of noise with her shoes or moving around a lot, but she seemed to enjoy herself. Someone in the band told her she better not do too much; apparently, she had recently had hip or knee surgery, can't remember which. After watching all this action for a while, we went back to our chairs on the bank of the river and just sat for a while. It was very relaxing, with such a beautiful view.
Finally, we picked up our chairs and walked back to the house. I sat on the front porch, reading, for the rest of the afternoon and finisihed my Miss Julia book. I tried to take one of those panoramic shots with my camera. It came out okay, I guess.
When the sun came out from behind a cloud, it would get really hot on the porch and we'd go inside for a while. Then we'd come back out later when the sun went behind a cloud again. Tim watched some golf on TV and napped a little. He emailed his co-workers to let them know to use my cell phone number if they needed to reach him. I texted Kim to see how Pete was doing. She said he was chewing on his feet a lot. :(
At one point when I was on the porch, our host's husband drove by (the one we almost hit with the car). He asked if everything was going okay and had we gone hiking. I told him we'd gone kayaking and told him about the phone. He asked if we put the phone in rice, and I said yes. Then he asked if we took the battery out, and I said yes. He said there was a bald eagle across the river yesterday. I hate that we didn't see it. That would've been so cool! I did tell him we'd been using the binoculars to look at birds, and that seemed to make him happy.
At suppertime, we drove to the deli beside the kayak place to get dinner.
How's that for fine dining? We both ordered their specials-- catfish for me, flounder and shrimp for Tim. We had to wait FOREVER. A bunch of people came in at the same time, and there was only one guy there. He had to call someone else, who had already gone home for the day, to come back and help him cook. We found out later that this was only his second day on the job. I think he just panicked. The owner of the outfitters came in to get some beer, and we talked to him again, this time telling him about the phone. He felt bad for us, as he should have, since his employee didn't tell us about the dry storage compartment.
While waiting on our food, I took the time to look around the convenience store part of the deli, just because I think places like that have interesting stuff. I was not disappointed. I saw all of these locally made products: wine, fried apple pies and raspberry pies, honey, oatmeal raisin cookies, and a big freezer full of ice cream (which was not local).
When our food arrived, we took it out the deli's deck by the river. This was right next to the take-out spot for our kayak trip.
My catfish was really good...
But Tim's flounder was awful. He couldn't even eat it, so I gave him some of mine. The fries were just okay, and the hushpuppies and slaw were not good. We spent $21 on food we didn't really like, except for the catfish. Oh well. We posed for a quick selfie.
I very much dislike this picture of me, but I'm including it because I'm trying to remember everything, and we did stop to take a selfie. We were faking those smiles, because we were actually very irritated that our food wasn't good (except for the catfish). The sun was going down by the time we left and it made for a pretty sky.
On the way home, we stopped at the Dollar General for the fourth time in two days. We couldn't believe how packed the parking lot was. There must've been 25 cars. We got one of the only vacant spots. We thought, "What is happening in there?" But it was just a crowded Saturday night at the Dollar General in Fries.
When we walked in, the check-out lines were veeeeery long. We wanted to get a styrofoam cooler so we could take home the milk we had bought. We found a stack of them for $2.50, but they all had tiny bugs in them. We picked the least gross one, and got in line to check-out. Of course, I started looking around, observing this cultural phenomenon in Fries. There was a lady in line whose buggy was filled to the brim, overflowing actually. Her bill was over $60. Who spends $60 at the Dollar General? It had become obvious in the four times we went there that this is where everyone does their grocery shopping, since there's no supermarket in Fries. Side note: the girl checking out in front of us had a 50-lb bag of dog food and a box of tampons, a combination that I think is worthy of mentioning.
When we got back to the house, I wrote in my travel diary and Tim watched football on TV. We eventually broke down and ate some more of the Rice Krispie squares we'd brought with us since we hadn't eaten much of our supper.
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