30TH (loud gasp!!) High School Reunion

Off to Mills River for my 30th high school reunion....amazing to think it's been that long.  Seems like yesterday!

 We flew in to Asheville airport early on Saturday morning because the runway was going to be closed their 50th anniversary celebration that included a 5K run on the runway!  Very strange to close a public runway for a non-aviation event.  We arrived just in time -

We visited with Mom and Frank for a while at the airport (they were at the airport participating in the "Leaf Flights" that the WNC Pilots Assoc. does every year).  We had lots of time to kill before we could check into our hotel, so we did a little sight-seeing.  As youngsters (17-18 yr olds) we used to hike down to Green River or the Big Hungry....so we found a trail and went for a hike.  This was NOT a trail we had been on before and ended up being a couple of hours and ALOT of elevation change!

It was a chilly day - but the jacket eventually came off because I was sweating!

We ended up at an overlook of the "Green River Narrows" - some crazy white water that crazy people ride kayaks down.....you can see it thru the trees here.

If you care to - look at this video on Youtube....crazy people!!





This is the trail leading down to the river....you literally had to grab the roots to climb it.  They also nicely provided some ropes to help you in areas that didn't have tree roots!

A fun hike - which we weren't really prepared for....

Drove past the Big Hungry dam....

On to the hotel - where we met up with Michelle and Daniel, good friends from grade school/high school.  Before we knew it, time for the reunion!

Now, most of you know that I spent my senior high school year at NC State....so I was NOT part of the voting to choose the "class slogan".  It really was "We are Sexy, We are Fun, We're the Class of '81"!!!  Wow, see what I missed?

Sorry for the dark photo - there was a professional photographer there - so we didn't take many photos.  They will be sending us a disc with lots of (much better) photos.

I grabbed this photo from Facebook....this is just the graduates....acting silly after our formal "group shot"...

Who are these people??  We had a great time!  (Or at least I know I did, Duane did a nice job of appearing to!)

That was pretty much it for my photos from the reunion - I will post some more when I get the disc.

On Sunday, we did some more sight-seeing, waiting for some gusty winds to settle down for the flight home.   We decided to go back hiking down a trail to Green River that we had taken several times back in high school.  This one was a much easier trail.  Ended up at the point where the kayakers put in for the "Narrows".

So pretty and quiet there (except for the rushing river, of course!)  I guess these guys are getting up their courage as the rapids are just down-river.

Back up the Big Hungry - this is a spot I remember from all those years ago. 

Beautiful!!  Hiked back out and had an uneventful flight home!!  Now for the next 30!!!