Extreme Adventure Sports

Deep Creek, MD is an all-season vacation spot. It is home to Wisp, a ski resort that has smartly converted its assets to include summertime activities. They use the water from snow-making in the winter for a Class 4 whitewater rafting course on the top of the mountain and have followed the European ski resorts by installing a mountain roller coaster down one of the ski slopes. Let's just say that Wisp is printing money. Want to raft, just fork over $65. Want to go up the chairlift, it's just $10. Want to look at the mountain, just pay $5. Want to breathe the fresh air, it's only $3/inhale... but exhales are free!

Zack and I did get a chance (thanks to a kid-sit swap agreement with Nate & Laura) to go rafting one afternoon. It was AWESOME. The whole adventure was two hours filled with paddling our butts off, riding the rapids and bumping into every rock on the course. There were a few crazy moments on the raft, but I must admit that Zack never fell out of the boat unintentionally. I, on the other hand, can not claim such success. Oh well, there goes my career in Olympic Whitewater Rafting.

For family adventure, we took the kids to the roller coaster... better known as the Alpine Slide. Now, if you don't know, Alexander isn't what we would call a "dare-devil". He is cautious of just about everything and down-right terrified of waves and fast moving objects. The canoe attempt earlier in the week almost brought the lake police boat after the screams of horror echoed across the lake. So the run up to the coaster was a little tenuous. We continued to say that it was not that fast, that we had a brake, I gave him a big dose of "courage" and told him to use it to be strong. He was still "not too sure about this", but since everyone else was doing it he was in. Meanwhile, CJ was totally game for the ride and had ants in her pants in line waiting to jump in. She is indeed our no fear, dare-devil. CJ and I ran down the mountain together at top speed and smiled the whole way down. As soon as we came to the end, she jumped off and screamed, "DO AGAIN, DO AGAIN!" As for Alexander, just watch:

*****SPOILER ALERT******

Just so you know, especially those in Social Services, Alexander immediately turned to Zack once off the coaster and started yelling: "Again! Again! Again!" And he did. Too bad we don't have video of that, because I took him down that time super fast and he had a ball.