Date: 2013-06-08
From: Waynesboro, VA

To: Raceway/Trail Campsite
Miles today: 4.0
Weather: scattered clouds

Day 88: We are so excited because the today is when we start our "aqua-blaze" adventure. As you know it has been raining a lot so the focus and question is what the river will be like and how fast it will be. Regardless, we are so excited to get started. You may not know, but "aqua-blaze" is somewhat controversial due to that you will not be actually "hiking" the white blaze and we talked about that. However, the exciting part of this is that we are going to be experiencing another part of the outdoors and something else that will be totally out of our comfort zone. We are all now very comfortable in whatever we may face out in the woods but this is totally unknown to us and we fully accept this new challenge. Some of the challenges are unfamiliarity of navigating a canoe or kayak, we don't have a map, so where do we camp, portage, resupply, etc.? We are so fortunate to have a very experienced river guide with us (Bluegrass) who has grown up on the rivers. I am sure we are going to learning a whole bunch of new things. Mark and Sharon arrived at the hotel with the two kayaks and canoe at 3pm. We were down on the river by 4pm at Constitution Park in Waynesboro, VA. We met the owner of another canoe/kayak rental company. He was telling us that he would be very concern of the river due to all the rains and was suggesting to us to delay a few days. He said that down the river a ways, he had a canoe (thru-hikers) that went through a hair pin turn and flipped it and it is now sitting at the bottom of the river with all the gear in it. He will have to get in there somehow with a winch to get it out of the currents. After careful consideration and much discussion, we decided to go ahead. We will start at the South Fork River which will meet the Shenondoah River in a few days. I got in the yellow kayak and Bluegrass gave me a few lessons on turning, stopping, flipping, etc. Coach got in her blue kayak (later named Tubby) in which Mark gave her the same lessons. Twix got in the front of the canoe and Bluegrass proceeded with her lessons as they went down stream. It was pretty shaky at first but invigorating. We rode the river for 2 1/2 hours before we found camp and without any instances. Along the river there were quite a few "no trespassing" signs. We finally found a nicely mowed field so we hauled our gear and boats in a nicely secluded area of the field. We ate and decided to sleep under the stars...well most of us. Twix was having problems with bugs so she eventually was under Bluegrass's tent that wasn't quite put up but kept her safe from all the bugs that were chewing on her.The night was beautiful as all the stars were out and the lightning bugs were out almost in full force. You could hear the river flowing by and rapids which was later down the river. We also must have been near a local speedway so we heard racing cars at least until midnight. We were also near a train track and heard the trail throughout the night rumble by. Now I don't know if I mentioned it earlier but I love the sound of trains so this was perfect as it also drowned out the speedway.Oh what a perfect first day and night of aqua-blazing.Salsa