Dear Diary,

Yesterday was really an adventure to remember. By the end of this you will probably think that we were over-reacting. Well guess again… It started out as a normal day at Grandma and Grandpa’s house in Georgia. It was a nice sunny day. Grandma and Grandpa and all the cousins were trying to think of interesting things to do outside. Grandma said that we might like to go float down a river on an inner tube. I thought that it would be nice to go tubing down a calm little river with my cousins. Grandma looked into it, and we were on our way.

At that point I had no idea what was in store for us later that afternoon. Once we had arrived and received our inner tubes, I became very anxious. I had no idea what to expect.  When we reached the river entrance my heart started to race. Grandpa, my five cousins, my brother and I were the only ones who went on the river. At the entrance, we all sat on our tubes and someone pushed us all off into the river. Once the last person was in the river, we were off! We wanted to stay together so we all grabbed onto each other’s inner tubes.

By that point, we noticed that we were starting to get pulled down the river quicker. I figured out that this was not a “lazy river”. The river had forests surrounding it on both sides. We soon also found out that the water was over our heads. I soon felt something pulling our “chain” very fast. As I looked ahead, I see rapids. Grandpa yells “Hold on tightly”! I clench my fist as hard as I can as we splash around in the rapids. We were all very scared.

After we passed the rapids, I didn’t have time to take a breath before we saw a small tree jutting out over the water. Gladly, the tree was high enough for someone to float under. One of my cousins, Aspen, was on the end of the chain that was closest to the tree. Once she was close enough to grab it, she did. I wonder what she was thinking when she grabbed onto that tree branch. She’s not exactly the sharpest tool in the shed. But anyway, when she decided to grab onto one of the braches, our whole chain suddenly broke apart. Aspen and Grandpa were together. My brother was with mom, I was with my cousin Tyler, and my cousin Tanya was with her sister Taylor. By then there was a lot going through our minds, “why did she do that?”, “are we going to survive?”, “how are we going to link ourselves together again?” We were all very panicked. There was no way for us to swim over to each other because of the strong current. I thought that that was as bad as this trip could get. But no…there was another surprise in store for us.

While everyone was panicking to join up with each other, I heard a small ‘plop’ in the water. I looked up into the sky and there I saw a humongous black storm cloud directly above our heads. There were many raindrops hitting the water by then. I started yelling, “rain! It’s raining! We’re going to get electrocuted!” Mom yelled back at me, “there’s no lightning! We are safe!” As soon as mom said that, you know what we saw in the distance? “FLASH!” The lighting struck the ground within a blink of an eye. “BOOM!” There was the thunder. Everyone saw it and started to completely FREAK OUT!

Mom and Grandpa were telling everyone to swim to the side near the forest. We noticed a small open space where we could get. We all started swimming as fast as we could, trying to fight the current and get to the side. Once we all struggled enough and got out on the side, everyone was terrified to go back into the water. My younger brother, Slater, started to cry. He was grabbing onto my mom and screaming, “I’M FREAKING OUT MOM! I’M FREAKING OUT!” My mom was telling him that it was going to be alright. He was the youngest out of all of us. I couldn’t help but giggle a bit. Even though we were all feeling the same inside at that point. We had all gone too far down the river to walk all the way back. Our only option was to keep going a little bit further unto we got to the exit.
Mom decided to try to wait for the storm to let up until we went back. Once it let up, we slowly started to get back into the horrible river. We slowly got into the river in pairs because there was no way for us to form a chain again.
All of us knew that the exit was coming up soon. Once we saw the sign that said EXIT everyone rejoiced in happiness. Everyone was staggered by then. Some were close to the exit, and some we on the side of the river opposite from the exit. Diary, do you know who the unfortunate people stuck on the other side of the river were? Yes, that’s right, Tyler and I. Right? Just my luck. And like I said earlier, we could not reach the bottom. All the cousins, mom, and even Grandpa had gotten out of the river…except us. Tyler and I started to scramble around like crazy animals. There was no time to mess around. We were both feeling the current becoming stronger. By that point our hearts were racing and there were tears coming from our eyes. Yes Diary, Tyler was crying more than I was. We were super duper close to the exit. Our family was trying to encourage us, we were scrambling to fight the current, hearts were racing and tears we flowing. Nothing else mattered at that point except for that exit sign. When I grabbed hold of mom’s hand, relief swam through my body. (Get it? Swam through my body? Swam? River?) Mom and grandpa yanked Tyler and I out of the reach of the river. All of us were wet and shivering. I could see the terror in everyone’s eyes.

Grandma walks over to us and happily asks, “did you guys have fun?” All of us turn to her and gave her the “that-was-the-worst-experience-of-my-life” look. Once we all packed ourselves into the car, everyone started to tell grandma about the adventure of a lifetime. Diary, I will probably never see river the same ever again. That trip was one of the most exciting and terrifying things that I have ever done. I know that I will NEVER do that EVER AGAIN.

Your lil’ author,
Summer R.