French Broad

This morning we actually succeeded in waking up early! We headed south back into North Carolina and much to the excitement of Mr. Dave Wells, ate breakfast at Bojangles?. Once Dave had finished getting back in touch with his childhood and we were sufficiently full of junk we drove over to a section of the French Broad on which we were hoping to take another playboat run. However after passing a landfill, prison, low-head dam and wastewater treatment plant all along the river we realized that the hole we were hoping to surf called ?shithole? was actually aptly named and we chose to forego the risk of viral infection and head downstream because the solution to pollution is dilution. We headed to Hot Springs NC where we talked to some raft guides who gave us the low down on that section of the French Broad. The put in was next to some creepy old Kudzu entwined buildings that appeared to be stuck in the Civil War and had a few sweet, old school trucks that had found their final resting places parked outside. After a short shuttle and some boat outfitting we put in on a much cleaner section of the Broad, which was no doubt broad but had plenty of water. It was a beautiful river, similar though bigger than the Nolichucky with plenty of fun waves and lots of concealed rocks. We saw 2 bald eagles, 1 fish, and 2 Canada Geese who ran rapids with us and 1 miniature donkey (at the takeout). We also got a little bit sunburned, as the sun was shining down on us for the first time in a number of days. Yay North Carolina!
We are now staying at Dave?s friend?s house in Blowing Rock, NC right near Boone (the birthplace of David Wells!). We will be paddling with another Bowdoin Alum tomorrow, John Hoffman, who is in Asheville for the time being. It has been an awesome couple of days on the river!!